Spaceweather: Mercury’s tail

Apr29

THE SODIUM TAIL OF MERCURY: Planets aren’t supposed to have tails, but Mercury does. Dr. Sebastian Voltmer just photographed it from La Palma in the Canary Islands:

“This is NOT a comet, not even a meteor, but the planet Mercury, which is currently very close to the Pleiades,” says Voltmer. “How is the tail formed? The solar wind and micro-meteorites eject sodium atoms from Mercury’s surface. This creates a yellow-orange tail of sodium gas that is around 2.5 million kilometers long.”