Violent Magnetic Storms Discovered In Mercury
July 18th, 2010 - 7:19 pm ICT by GDBy Gina Gomez
July 18, (THAINDIAN NEWS) A new research undertaken by scientists of NASA points out that Mercury is subjected to magnetic disturbances that are far more prominent than what is experienced by the Earth. A series of studies have also highlighted that the fact that the volcanic activity that Sun’s closet planet experiences is much longer than what was presumed by the scientists earlier on. The vital information about Mercury were gathered by The Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) which was the first spacecraft that was created by NASA which orbits around the planet.
The spacecraft which conducted its third as well as last flyby across Mercury has been successful in unlocking a variety of important details about the planet which remained elusive to the scientists all this while. One of the most significant information revealed by the MESSENGER is that Mercury consists of magnetic fields or ‘magnetosphere’ which supposedly releases energy in the form of extreme magnetic disturbances which are called substorms. Interestingly, the intensity of these substorms that have been found on Mercury is far more violent that those seen on Earth.
Ron Vervack, who is one of the lead author’s of one of the studies that divulged the revealing insights has stated that the profiles of Mercury’s exosphere highlighted a significant amount of variability among the sodium, calcium and magnesium distributions which are indicative of different processes being at work in the planet’s exosphere. Meanwhile, the spacecraft MESSENGER which was launched by NASA in the year 2004,has already been instrumental in divulging a huge array of knowledge about the planet and solving its mysteries.
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Tags: closet planet, distributions, exosphere, flyby, geochemistry, gina gomez, magnesium, magnetic disturbances, magnetic fields, magnetic storms, magnetosphere, mercury surface, nasa, orbits, space environment, spacecraft messenger, surface space, variability, vital information, volcanic activity