The Messenger Mission To Mercury

This is the first book to present the science and instruments of NASA’S MESSENGER space mission. The articles, written by the experts in each area of the MESSENGER mission, describe the mission, spacecraft, scientific objectives, and payload. The book is of interest to all potential users of the data returned by the mission, to those studying the nature of Mercury, and by all those interested in the design and implementation of planetary exploration missions.

Offers an authoritative synthesis of knowledge of the planet Mercury after the MESSENGER mission, for researchers and students in planetary science.

In his inimitable, easy-going style, Patrick Moore describes Mercury. He writes of the professional astronomers who have observed it over the centuries, amateur observations, and the past, present and future space missions to this extraordinary world. In doing so he has written the most up-to-date book about Mercury for amateur astronomers. Mercury is one of the more difficult objects for astronomers to observe because of its close proximity to the Sun. However, amateur astronomers can see the planet and its ever-changing phases all year, and sometimes watch it transit the Sun – the next transit is in November 2006, followed by one in May 2016.

A new and detailed picture of Mercury is emerging thanks to NASA’s MESSENGER mission that spent four years in orbit about the Sun’s innermost planet. Comprehensively illustrated by close-up images and other data, the author describes Mercury’s landscapes from a geological perspective: from sublimation hollows, to volcanic vents, to lava plains, to giant thrust faults. He considers what its giant core, internal structure and weird composition have to tell us about the formation and evolution of a planet so close to the Sun. This is of special significance in view of the discovery of so many exoplanets in similarly close orbits about their stars. Mercury generates its own magnetic field, like the Earth (but unlike Venus, Mars and the Moon), and the interplay between Mercury’s and the Sun’s magnetic field affects many processes on its surface and in the rich and diverse exosphere of neutral and charged particles surrounding the planet. There is much about Mercury that we still don’t understand. Accessible to the amateur, but also a handy state-of-the-art digest for students and researchers, the book shows how our knowledge of Mercury developed over the past century of ground-based, fly-by and orbital observations, and looks ahead at the mysteries remaining for future missions to explore.

This book is an essential reference volume that surveys tectonic landforms on solid bodies throughout the Solar System.

This book views Mercury as a whole in the context of its environment. It illustrates what we know and what we need to know, and why understanding Mercury is so crucial to our understanding of solar system origin and current processes on Earth. The book describes our current state of knowledge for Mercury and interactions between interior, exterior, and space environment which are highly dynamic and thus critical to understanding Mercury as a system.

Flight to Mercury