Interactions between Mercury's surface and its dynamic space environment

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The project will have a number of research strands including:The energetic particle populations surrounding Mercury: We will focus on particle and magnetic field measurements taken by MESSENGER in regions magnetically conjugate to previous observations of particleinduced X-ray fluorescence, in order to understand the particle populations responsible for the X-ray emissions.An associated laboratory programme will include the characterisation of X-ray and particle-induced X-rayfluorescence from ground based Mercury surface analogues, using the MIXS ground truth facility. Such analysis is a vital precursor to the BepiColombo mission to ensure maximum science return from the MIXS instrumentThe ULF wave population within Mercury's magnetosphere using MESSENGER data: The damping of thesewaves is determined by their interaction with the insulating planetary surface and highly conducting planetary core, and here we will focus on their use, for the first time, as a diagnostic of crustal electrical properties.