The Morphology of Mercury's Ca Exosphere as Observed With Keck-1/HIRES

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6200 Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects, 6235 Mercury

Scientific paper

We present results from observations of Mercury's Ca exosphere with the HIRES spectrograph on the Keck-1 telescope in May 2008. The Ca exosphere exhibited a distinct N/S asymmetry at this time, with higher densities observed in the northern regions. The extended Ca exosphere was observed to contain significant tangent densities of 5.6 x 107/cm2 in the tail region at 10000 km radius from planet center, and 2 x 108/cm2 at 5500 km radius on the subsolar side of the planet. The species was observed to be most dynamic at low planetary altitude and in the near tail region, as measured through its persistent high LOS blue-shifted velocity. Relative to the sodium exosphere, which was measured concurrently, the temperature, scale height, and velocities of Ca are all greatly enhanced. We also present observations of Mercury's atmosphere with Keck-1/HIRES from June 2005 and May 2007, including new, low upper limits for other metals. We discuss the implications of these observations in the source and loss processes for Ca and other refractory species.

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