PIA10395: Mercury's Magnetic Field
 Target Name:  Mercury
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  MESSENGER
 Spacecraft:  MESSENGER
 Instrument:  MESSENGER Magnetometer (MAG) 
 Product Size:  3000 x 2025 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA10395.tif (18.23 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA10395.jpg (275.2 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This plot shows the measured magnitude of the magnetic field of Mercury as MESSENGER executed its first flyby of that planet. MESSENGER's Magnetometer (MAG) provided definitive identification of all boundaries of the Mercury magnetosphere system, consistent with the observations made with the Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) on the Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer (EPPS) instrument, and revealed a much more quiescent system than was seen during the first Mariner 10 flyby. This state of the system was also consistent with the absence of energetic particles as documented by the Energetic Particle Spectrometer (EPS) portion of MESSENGER's EPPS instrument. Mercury lacks radiations belts similar to the Van Allen belts at the Earth discovered by James Van Allen with a simple particle experiment on Explorer I launched 50 years ago.

These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy.

Image Credit:
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Image Addition Date:
2008-01-30