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Mercury’s Hot Flow Revealed by MESSENGER
A hot flow anomaly, or HFA, has been identified around Mercury (Credit: NASA/Duberstein)
Our Sun is constantly sending a hot stream of charged atomic particles out into space in all directions. Pouring out from holes in the Sun’s corona, this solar wind flows through the Solar System at speeds of over 400 km/s (that’s 893,000 mph). When it encounters magnetic fields, like those generated by planets, the flow of particles is deflected into a bow shock — but not necessarily in a uniform fashion. Turbulence can occur just like in air flows on Earth, and “space weather” results.
One of the more curious effects is a regional reversal of the flow of solar wind particles. Called a “hot flow anomaly,” or HFA, these energetic phenomena occur almost daily in Earth’s magnetic field, as well as on Jupiter and Saturn, and even on Mars and Venus where the magnetic fields are weak (but there are still planets blocking the stream of charged particles.)
Not to be left out in the cold, Mercury is now known to display HFAs, which have been detected for the first time by the MESSENGER spacecraft.
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Read the rest of Mercury’s Hot Flow Revealed by MESSENGER (352 words)
© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: Goddard, HFA, hot flow, Mercury, MESSENGER, planet, space
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/112664/mercurys-hot-flow-revealed-by-messenger/
