Mercury The View after MESSENGER

About this book

Observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury have transformed our understanding of the origin and evolution of rocky planets. Mercury: The View after MESSENGER is the definitive resource about Mercury for planetary scientists, from students to senior researchers. Topics treated in depth include Mercury's chemical composition; the structure of its crust, lithosphere, mantle, and core; Mercury's modern and ancient magnetic field; Mercury's geology, including the planet's major geological units and their surface chemistry and mineralogy, its spectral reflectance characteristics, its craters and cratering history, its tectonic features and deformational history, its volcanic features and magmatic history, its distinctive hollows, and the frozen ices in its polar deposits; Mercury's exosphere and magnetosphere and the processes that govern their dynamics and their interaction with the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field; the formation and large-scale evolution of the planet; and current plans and needed capabilities to explore Mercury further in the future.

Contents

1. The MESSENGER mission: science and implementation overview / Sean C. Solomon and Brian J. Anderson
2. The chemical composition of Mercury / Larry R. Nittler, Nancy L. Chabot, Timothy L. Grove and Patrick N. Peplowski
3. Mercury's crust and lithosphere: structure and mechanics / Roger J. Phillips, Paul K. Byrne, Peter B. James, Erwan Mazarico, Gregory A. Neumann and Mark E. Perry
4. Mercury's internal structure / Jean-Luc Margot, Steven A. Hauck, II, Erwan Mazarico, Sebastiano Padovan and Stanton J. Peale
5. Mercury's internal magnetic field / Catherine L. Johnson, Brian J. Anderson, Haje Korth, Roger J. Phillips and Lydia C. Philpott
6. The geologic history of Mercury / Brett W. Denevi, Carolyn M. Ernst, Louise M. Prockter and Mark S. Robinson
7. The geochemical and mineralogical diversity of Mercury / Timothy J. McCoy, Patrick N. Peplowski, Francis M. McCubbin and Shoshana Z. Weider
8. Spectral reflectance constraints on the composition and evolution of Mercury's surface / Scott L. Murchie, Rachel L. Klima, Noam R. Izenberg, Deborah L. Domingue, David T. Blewett and Jörn Helbert
9. Impact cratering of Mercury / Clark R. Chapman, David M. H. Baker, Olivier S. Barnouin, Caleb I. Fassett, Simone Marchi, William J. Merline, Lillian R. Ostrach, Louise M. Prockter and Robert G. Strom
10. The tectonic character of Mercury / Paul K. Byrne, Christian Klimczak and A. M. Celâl Sengör
11. The volcanic character of Mercury / Paul K. Byrne, Jennifer L. Whitten, Christian Klimczak, Francis M. McCubbin and Lillian R. Ostrach
12. Mercury's hollows / David T. Blewett, Carolyn M. Ernst, Scott L. Murchie and Faith Vilas
13. Mercury's polar deposits / Nancy L. Chabot, David J. Lawrence, Gregory A. Neumann, William C. Feldman and David A. Paige
14. Observations of Mercury's exosphere: composition and structure / William E. McClintock, Timothy A. Cassidy, Aimee W. Merkel, Rosemary M. Killen, Matthew H. Burger and Ronald J. Vervack, Jr
15. Understanding Mercury's exosphere: models derived from MESSENGER observations / Rosemary M. Killen, Matthew H. Burger, Ronald J. Vervack, Jr, and Timothy A. Cassidy
16. Structure and configuration of Mercury's magnetosphere / Haje Korth, Brian J. Anderson, Catherine L. Johnson, James A. Slavin, Jim M. Raines and Thomas H. Zurbuchen
17. Mercury's dynamic magnetosphere / James A. Slavin, Daniel N. Baker, Daniel J. Gershman, George C. Ho, Suzanne M. Imber, Stamatios M. Krimigis and Torbjörn Sundberg
18. The elusive origin of Mercury / Denton S. Ebel and Sarah T. Stewart
19. Mercury's global evolution / Steven A. Hauck, II, Matthias Grott, Paul K. Byrne, Brett W. Denevi, Sabine Stanley and Timothy J. McCoy
20. Future missions: Mercury after MESSENGER / Ralph L. McNutt, Jr, Johannes Benkhoff, Masaki Fujimoto and Brian J. Anderson

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Biography

Sean C. Solomon is Director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and William B. Ransford Professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Columbia University. He earlier served as Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Professor of Geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was the Principal Investigator for NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury from the initial mission concept in 1986 to the end of the project in 2017. He also served on the science teams for the Magellan mission to Venus, the Mars Global Surveyor mission, and the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission to the Moon. A member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and former President of the American Geophysical Union, Solomon in 2014 was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama.

Larry R. Nittler conducts laboratory research on extraterrestrial materials and remote-sensing observations of planets at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He served on NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury as Participating Scientist from 2007 to 2012 and Deputy Principal Investigator from 2012 to 2017. He earlier participated in the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, Stardust, and Genesis missions and is currently a science team member on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 asteroid sample return mission and the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. He received the 2001 Alfred O. C. Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society and was named Fellow of that society in 2010. Asteroid 5992 Nittler is named in his honor.

Brian J. Anderson is a Principal Professional Staff Physicist at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Maryland, having served earlier as Magnetospheric Section supervisor and Space Physics Group supervisor. For MESSENGER he was Magnetometer Instrument Scientist from 1999 to 2009 and Deputy Project Scientist from 2007 to 2017 while also serving as a Co-Investigator from 2009 to 2017. He was spacecraft magnetics lead and is on the science team of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission. He is the Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation's Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment. His research includes the physics of magnetospheres, plasma wave-particle physics, and planetary magnetic fields.


Contributors:
- Sean C. Solomon
- Brian J. Anderson
- Larry R. Nittler
- Nancy L. Chabot
- Timothy L. Grove
- Patrick N. Peplowski
- Roger J. Phillips
- Paul K. Byrne
- Peter B. James
- Erwan Mazarico
- Gregory A. Neumann
- Mark E. Perry
- Jean-Luc Margot
- Steven A. Hauck, II
- Sebastiano Padovan
- Stanton J. Peale
- Catherine L. Johnson
- Haje Korth
- Lydia C. Philpott
- Brett W. Denevi
- Carolyn M. Ernst
- Louise M. Prockter
- Mark S. Robinson
- Timothy J. McCoy
- Francis M. McCubbin
- Shoshana Z. Weider
- Scott L. Murchie
- Rachel L. Klima
- Noam R. Izenberg
- Deborah L. Domingue
- David T. Blewett
- Jörn Helbert
- Clark R. Chapman
- David M. H. Baker
- Olivier S. Barnouin
- Caleb I. Fassett
- Simone Marchi
- William J. Merline
- Lillian R. Ostrach
- Robert G. Strom
- Christian Klimczak
- A. M. Celâl Sengör
- Jennifer L. Whitten
- Faith Vilas
- David J. Lawrence
- William C. Feldman
- David A. Paige
- William E. McClintock
- Timothy A. Cassidy
- Aimee W. Merkel
- Rosemary M. Killen
- Matthew H. Burger
- Ronald J. Vervack, Jr.
- James A. Slavin
- Jim M. Raines
- Thomas H. Zurbuchen
- Daniel N. Baker
- Daniel J. Gershman
- George C. Ho
- Suzanne M. Imber
- Stamatios M. Krimigis
- Torbjörn Sundberg
- Denton S. Ebel
- Sarah T. Stewart
- Matthias Grott
- Sabine Stanley
- Ralph L. McNutt, Jr.
- Johannes Benkhoff
- Masaki Fujimoto