Mercury's Weak Magnetic Field Periodically Traps Solar Wind

Image of Mercury taken by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft. (Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington)

The planet Mercury is the first planet from the Sun but also one shrouded in mystery. This is primarily due to the limited number of spacecrafts that have visited it, but this limited data has provided scientists with new and exciting characteristics previously thought impossible. One fascinating aspect is its magnetic field, which was first discovered in March 1974, which both surprised and puzzled scientists due to the planet’s small size, which is measured at about half the size of the continental United States from coast to coast.

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