It’s Mercury on the dance floor, but you better not kill the groove! 🪩⁣ ⁣ Donned in colorful shades, data from the MESSENGER mission is modeled to shed light on how certain types of comets influence the tiny space rocks, or micrometeoroids, that impact our smallest planetary neighbor, Mercury.⁣ ⁣ According to experts at NASAGoddard, simulations from variations in meteoroid impacts reveal surprising patterns in the time of day that impacts occur: mornings. Noting a higher presence of magnesium and calcium in the exosphere indicated that meteoroid impacts are more frequent on whatever part of the planet is experiencing dawn at the given time. Impact speed was then considered - meteoroids from asteroids wouldn’t be moving fast enough to create the observed impacts. Eventually, it was narrowed to meteoroids from two certain types of comets – Jupiter-family and Halley-Type – that had the speed necessary to match the observations.⁣ ⁣ Learn more about missions happening within our solar s...