Observations and Modeling of Mercury’s Exosphere

BU Station at McDonald Observatory		Wide Angle, Low Light Level Imager

	Professor Mendillo’s Imaging Science Lab builds instruments and conducts observations of the exospheres of Jupiter, Mercury and Earth’s Moon. Due to it’s proximity to the Sun, sodium in Mercury’s exosphere forms a comet-like tail escaping the planet.
Observations of the Tail		Monte Carlo Modeling (Schmidt et al., 2012
(Schmidt et al., 2010)