Mercury's Circumsolar Dust Ring as an Imprint of a Recent Impact

Mercury's Circumsolar Dust Ring as an Imprint of a Recent Impact

A circumsolar dust ring has been recently discovered close to the orbit of Mercury. There are currently no hypotheses for the origin of this ring in the literature, so we explore four different origin scenarios here: the dust originated from (1) the sporadic meteoroid complex that comprises the majo...

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Veröffentlicht in:The planetary science journal 2023-02, Vol.4 (2), p.33
Hauptverfasser: Pokorný, Petr, Deutsch, Ariel N., Kuchner, Marc J.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Asteroids
Craters
Exobiology
Impact phenomena
Interplanetary dust
Mercury (planet)
Meteoroid dust clouds
Orbital resonances
Planetary surfaces
Space Sciences (General)
Zodiacal cloud
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Zusammenfassung:A circumsolar dust ring has been recently discovered close to the orbit of Mercury. There are currently no hypotheses for the origin of this ring in the literature, so we explore four different origin scenarios here: the dust originated from (1) the sporadic meteoroid complex that comprises the major portion of the Zodiacal Cloud, (2) recent asteroidal/cometary activity, (3) hypothetical dust-generating bodies locked in mean-motion resonances beyond Mercury, and (4) bodies co-orbiting with Mercury. We find that only scenario (4) reproduces the observed structure and location of Mercury's dust ring. However, the lifetimes of Mercury's co-orbitals (
ISSN:2632-3338
2632-3338
DOI:10.3847/PSJ/acb52e