Planet Mercury

David A. Rothery

ISBN 10: 3319121162 / ISBN 13: 9783319121161

Editore: Springer Nature Switzerland Nov 2014, 2014

Riguardo questo articolo

Neuware -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.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 196 pp. Englisch.

Codice articolo 9783319121161

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Planet Mercury
• Editore: Springer Nature Switzerland Nov 2014
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 3319121162
• ISBN 13: 9783319121161
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 241 L x 160 A x 17 P (millimetri) 241 millimetri di larghezza per 160 millimetri di altezza per 17 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 465 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

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.

Informazioni sull?autore

David A. Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University at Milton Keynes, UK. He has been member of the PPARC Solar System Advisory Panel and the BepiColombo Oversight Committee, and is UK Lead Scientist on MIXS (Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer), one of the instruments on the European Space Agency's BepiColombo mission to Mercury to be launched in 2016. His research interests centre on the study of volcanic activity by means of remote sensing, and volcanology and geoscience in general on other planets.