Evidence for space weather at Mercury

Mercury's sodium atmosphere is known to be highly variable both temporally and spatially. During a week-long period from November 13 to 20, 1997, the total sodium content of the Hermean atmosphere increased by a factor of 3, and the distribution varied daily. We demonstrate a mechanism whereby these rapid variations could be due to solar wind-magnetosphere interactions. We assume that photon-stimulated desorption and meteoritic vaporization are the active source processes on the first (quietest) day of our observations. Increased ion sputtering results whenever the magnetosphere opens in response to a southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) or unusually large solar wind dynamic pressure. The solar wind dynamic pressure at Mercury as inferred by heliospheric radial tomography increased by a factor of 20 during this week, while the solar EUV flux measured by the scanning electron microscope (SEM) instrument on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) increased by 20%. While impact vaporization provides roughly 25% of the source, it is uniformly distributed and varies very little during the week. The variations seen in our data are not related to Caloris basin, which remained in the field of view during the entire week of observations. We conclude that increased ion sputtering resulting from ions entering the cusp regions is the probable mechanism leading to large rapid increases in the sodium content of the exosphere. While both the magnitude and distribution of the observed sodium can be reproduced by our model, in situ measurements of the solar wind density and velocity, the magnitude and direction of the interplanetary magnetic field, and Mercury's magnetic moments are required to confirm the results.