Here's a new series on the solar system. I have yet to see it, though I did see some of the filming activities.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/seri...-to-the-planets

I looked at the preview videos. The whole "If you were standing on the night side of Mercury, the entire sky would be alight with auroras" thing kinda turned me off.

Kind of interesting nonetheless. Would MESSENGER be able to image such aurorae?

Funny that this powerpoint presentation states "no" aurorae on Mercury.

http://www.spacewx.com/jupiter/docs/Overview.pdf

That's an older presentation, though, Steve...apparently pre-Cassini arrival, at least. I think that the jury's still out re Hermian aurorae.

MESSENGER's already detected an extremely tenuous sodium atmosphere (think there was some oxygen, too), so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there's a bit of activity happening given the strong magnetic field & even stronger solar wind. Dunno if MESSENGER's capable of detecting it, though.

I watched the Mercury/Venus episode, and I've got the rest sitting at home on my DVR. A bit too sensationalist for my taste, but a solid hour of entertainment for space junkies. Heavy on the drama. A little thin on the science. No one on this forum will learn anything new, but we're surely not the target audience. It could help to spur interest in the casual space fan.

I spotted a paper online somewhere where it was mentioned that the Hermian magnetic field is about 1% of Earth's. However the interaction with a stronger solar wind is supposed to make magnetic reconnection events about 10 times more frequent than Earth's, so this might help make aurorae more spectacular.

Given the aurorae we've seen by spacecraft at places like Jupiter, Saturn, and Io, (plus Earth orbiters) it would be interesting if Mercury could be added to the list with the help of its spacecraft visitor.