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PIA14851: Mapping Ions around Mercury
 Target Name:  Mercury
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  MESSENGER
 Spacecraft:  MESSENGER
 Instrument:  FIPS
 Product Size:  1000 x 563 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14851.tif (1.691 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14851.jpg (64.47 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 image is an artistic rendering of the global distribution of ionized sodium (Na) and helium (He) near the planet Mercury. Sodium exhibits distinct maxima near the magnetic cusps, where neutral atoms are likely liberated from the surface by solar wind ion bombardment. Helium is much more uniformly distributed, such as would be expected if the dominant source process were evaporation from a helium-saturated surface.

Date Presented: September 29, 2011, at a NASA Press Briefing
Instrument: The Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS)

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:
University of Michigan (inset courtesy AAAS/Science)

Image Addition Date:
2011-09-29