Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000dps....32.2307k&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS Meeting #32, #23.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 32, p.1035
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We observed Mercury's sodium atmosphere during the week of November 13 - 20, 1997, with the stellar spectrograph at the McMath-Pierce solar telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona. During this week the total sodium content of the atmosphere increased by a factor of three. Although the solar EUV flux observed by the SEM instrument onboard SOHO showed that the EUV flux at Mercury increased by about 20 alpha flux increased by 5 dynamic pressure as inferred by heliospheric tomography increased by a factor of about 20. We have modeled the atmospheric sources, including meteoritic vaporization, photon-stimulated desorption and ion sputtering. We conclude that the increase in exospheric density was primarily due to ion-sputtering. A best fit to the data gives a 15 dependence on solar wind momentum, indicating that a small portion of the surface is affected. Our model implies that impact vaporization supplies about 10 content. There may be a dual role of solar EUV radiation and solar wind charged particles in mobilizing the sodium atoms. This work was partially supported by the NASA Planetary Astronomy and Planetary Atmospheres Program.
Killen Rosemary Margaret
Potter Andrew E.
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