EGU2020-19022, updated on 14 May 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-19022
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Exospheric Na distributions along the Mercury orbit with the THEMIS telescope

Anna Milillo1, Valeria Mangano1, Stefano Massetti1, alessandro Mura1, christina Plainaki2, Tommaso Alberti1, Stavro Ivanovski3, Elisabetta De Angelis1, and Rosanna Rispoli1
Anna Milillo et al.
  • 1National Institute of Astrophysics, Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, Italy (anna.milillo@inaf.it)
  • 2Italian Space Agency, Rome, Italy
  • 3INAF/OATs

The variability of Na exosphere of Mercury shows time scales from less than one hour to seasonal variations. While the faster variations, accounting of about 10-20% of fluctuations are probably linked to the planet response to solar wind and IMF variability, the seasonal variations (up to about 80%) should be explained by a complex mechanisms involving different surface release processes, loss, source and migrations of the exospheric Na atoms. Eventually, a Na annual cycle can be identified. In the past, integrated disk emission from ground-based observations and equatorial density from MESSENGER have been analysed. In this study, for a better investigation of the exospheric Na features, we have studied the local time and latitudinal distributions of the exospheric Na column density as a function of the True Anomaly Angle (TAA) of Mercury by means of the extended dataset of images, collected from 2009 to 2013, by the THEMIS solar telescope. In particular, THEMIS images, in agreement with previous results, registered a strong general increase at aphelion and a dawn ward emission predominance with respect to dusk ward and subsolar region between 90° and 150° TAA. We find a predominance of subsolar column density along the rest of the Mercury orbit. Also an unexpected relation between Northward or Southward peak emission and both TAA and local time is evidenced by our analysis requiring further investigations. Possible relationship with distance from the dust disk or IMF polarity is being considering.

How to cite: Milillo, A., Mangano, V., Massetti, S., Mura, A., Plainaki, C., Alberti, T., Ivanovski, S., De Angelis, E., and Rispoli, R.: Exospheric Na distributions along the Mercury orbit with the THEMIS telescope , EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-19022, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-19022, 2020.

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