After the joint ESA/JAXA mission BepiColombo completed 4 successful swingbys of Mercury with closest approaches of only 200 km, spacecraft observations and numerical modelling give us insight into the unexplored regions around the innermost terrestrial planet. Together with data obtained by the late NASA mission MESSENGER, BepiColombo’s swingbys and orbit phase will lead to new understanding about the origin, formation, evolution, composition, interior structure, and magnetospheric environment of Mercury. This session hosts contributions to planetary, geological, exospheric and magnetospheric science results based on spacecraft observations by Mariner 10, MESSENGER, BepiColombo, and Earth-based observations, modelling of interior, surface and planetary environment and theory.
In particular, studies investigating the required BepiColombo observations during the nominal mission to validate the existing theoretical models about the interior, exosphere and magnetosphere are welcome, as well as presentations on laboratory experiments useful to confirm potential future measurements.