Mercury's surface and composition to be studied by BepiColombo
2 International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Dipartimento di Scienze, Università d'Annunzio
3 University of Leicester
4 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung = Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
5 School of Earth Sciences, Birkbeck College
6 IASF-Roma - Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica
7 OAC - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte
8 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
9 Pôle Planétologie du LESIA
10 UNIPG - Università degli Studi di Perugia = University of Perugia
11 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
12 WWU - Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster = University of Münster = Université de Münster [Münster, Allemagne]
13 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale
14 Unipd - Università degli Studi di Padova = University of Padua
15 IKI - Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
16 Helsinki Observatory
17 Institute för Astronomi och Rymdfysik
18 Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern
Résumé
We describe the contributions that we expect the BepiColombo mission to make towards increased knowledge and understanding of Mercury's surface and composition. BepiColombo will have a larger and more capable suite of instruments relevant for determination of the topographic, physical, chemical and mineralogical properties of the surface than carried by NASA's MESSENGER mission. We anticipate that the insights gained into the planet's geological history and its current space weathering environment will enable us to understand the relationships between surface composition and the composition of different types of crust. This will enable estimation of the composition of the mantle from which the crust was derived, and lead to better constraints on models for Mercury's origin and the nature of the material from which it formed.