MESSENGER was a great example of how NASA’s reputation for solid engineering can extend the life of their spacecraft far beyond anyone’s expectations. Originally slated for a one year mission once it reached it’s destination (a 7 year long journey in itself) MESSENGER continued to operate around Mercury for another 3 years past its original mission date, providing all sorts of great data on the diminutive planet that hugs our sun. However after being in orbit for so long its fuel reserves ran empty leaving it unable to maintain its orbit. Then last week MESSENGER crash landed on Mercury’s surface putting an end to the 10 year long mission. However before that happened MESSENGER sent back some interesting data around Mercury’s past.
As MESSENGER’s orbit deteriorated it creeped ever closer to the surface of Mercury allowing it to take measurements that it couldn’t do previously due to concerns about the spacecraft not being able to recover from such a close approach. During this time, when MESSENGER was orbiting at a mere 15KMs (just a hair above the max flight ceiling of a modern jetliner) it was able to use its magnetometer to detect the magnetic field emanating from the rocks on Mercury’s surface. These fields showed that the magnetic field that surrounds Mercury is incredibly ancient, dating back almost 4 billion years (right around the creation of our solar system). This is interesting for a variety of reasons but most of all because of how similar Mercury’s magnetic field is to ours.
Of all the planets in our solar system only Earth and Mars have a sustained magnetic field that comes from an internal dynamo of undulating molten metals. Whilst the gas giants also generate magnetic fields they come from a far more exotic form of matter (metallic hydrogen) and our other rocky planets, Venus and Mars, have cores that have long since solidified, killing any significant field that might have once been present. Mercury’s field is much weaker than Earth’s, on the order of only 1% or so, but it’s still enough to produce a magnetosphere that deflects the solar wind. Knowing how Mercury’s field evolved and changed over time will give us insights not only into our own magnetic field but of those planets in our solar system who have long since lost theirs.
There’s likely a bunch more revelations to come from the data that MESSENGER gathered over all those years it spent orbiting our tiny celestial sister but discoveries like this, ones that could only be made in the mission’s death throes, feel like they have a special kind of significance. Whilst it might not be the stuff that makes headlines around the world it’s the kind of incremental discovery that gives us insight into the inner workings of planets and their creation, something we will most definitely need to understand as we venture further into space.
