Planet Mercury’s Tail
February 21st 2011 01:51
Category: Planets
Comets are not the only objects within our solar system that can display a tail the NASA's STEREO mission has imaged a tail of faintly glowing gas coming out from the planet Mercury.
Mercury posses similar characteristics in common with comets, even though the composition of Mercury is dramatically different from that of a comet so called dirty snowball that meander through the outer reaches our solar system's.
Mercury has an atmosphere of sorts by an exceedingly thin "coma" of gas, and radiation from the sun pushes a tail of atoms from that coma outward for more than a million miles.
Mercury's tail is yellow-orange which trails the solar wind. The long tail is more than 100 times the radius of the planet itself.
Mercury's tail has been seen previously what the cameras did not show was the elongated tail.
The reason it was missed was they were looking at a narrow portion of the sky.
The 1.6-million-mile-long gaseous tail is created by the Sun’s solar wind . These particles pack enough energy to strip some of the thin atmosphere into space.
Mercury’s tail make up consists of mostly sodium atoms. These atoms tend to fluoresce when struck by photons from the Sun, much like a Sodium Street lamp.
In another earlier study, the MESSENGER craft found that volcanic activity on Mercury may have lasted far longer than researchers previously thought.
Mercury did have a volcanic past, they may still be pockets of active eruptions although none have been detected so far.
Mercury’s tail was detected by two satellites involved in the STEREO mission specifically designed to observe the sun.
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
Hi S.L. Thank you for the comment.
Yes the Sun has a big influence on Mercury’s scarce atmosphere.
As far as other planets having tails Mercury is most probable the only one in our solar system.
Earth does have tail of sorts its a dust tail from left over debris left over when the Earth was struck by another Mars like planet.