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The MESSENGER mission provided a wealth of discoveries regarding Mercury’s present and past magnetic field and completed the first-order characterization of the magnetic fields of the solar system’s inner planets. MESSENGER demonstrated that Mercury is the only inner planet other than Earth to possess a global magnetic field generated by fluid motions in its liquid iron core. The field possesses some similarities to that of Earth, particularly its dipolar nature, but it is more than a factor of 100 weaker at the surface and unlike Earth’s field is highly asymmetric about the geographic equator. This structure constrains the dynamo process that generates the field and in turn the compositional and thermal structure of Mercury’s interior. Measurements made by MESSENGER less than 100 km above the planetary surface revealed signatures of crustal magnetization, at least some of which were acquired in a very ancient global magnetic field. Electric currents flow in the planet’s interior as a result of the dynamic interactions of the global magnetic field with the solar wind. These currents provide information on the radius of Mercury’s electrically conductive core, as well as the conductivity structure of the crust and mantle, which in turn reflects interior composition and temperature.
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