Observations of the minor species Al, Fe and Ca+ in Mercury’s exosphere

Abstract:

We report here on the first observational evidence of Al and Fe in the exosphere of Mercury, based on measurements of 4-5-σ resolved emission lines of these metals made with Keck-1/HIRES. AlI emission was observed on two separate runs, in 2008 and 2013, with tangent column densities of 2.4 and 3.0e+07 Al atoms cm-2 at altitudes of 1300 and 1850 km (1.1 and 1.5 R_M), respectively. FeI emission has been observed once, yielding a tangent column of 6.2e+08 cm-2 at an altitude of 950 km (1.4 R_M) in 2009. We also present observations of 3.5-σ CaII emission features near Mercury’s equatorial anti-solar limb in 2011, from which a stringent column abundance upper limit of 4.0e+06 cm-2 is derived for the Ca ion.

A simple model for zenith column abundances of the neutral species yields 2.0e+07 Al cm-2, and 8.2e+08 Fe cm-2. The observations appear to be consistent with production of these species by impact vaporization, with a large fraction of the Al ejecta in molecular form, and that for Fe in mixed atomic and molecular forms. The scale height of the Al gas is consistent with a kinetic temperature of 4800-8200 K while that of Fe is 5000-13000 K. The apparent high temperature and low density of the Al gas would suggest that it may be produced by dissociation of molecules. A large fraction of both Al and Fe appear to condense in a vapor cloud at low altitudes.