The magnetosphere of Mercury and its solar wind environment: Open issues and scientific questions

The scant data from the historic Mariner-10 flybys indicate that the Hermean and terrestrial magnetospheres have many similarities. However, Mercury’s differences, e.g., the absence of an ionosphere, high sodium content, small dimension, and the stronger forcing by the solar wind, make it likely that processes of lesser importance at Earth play a more major role at Mercury. In addition, the proximity of Mercury in time and space to the onset of solar events, places the magnetosphere in a heretofore unexplored environment.