What effects do CMEs have on planets like Mercury?

Question

Some Background?

Coronal Mass Ejections, or CMEs for short are the topic of this question. Anyone new to this topic is sure to find some really interesting facts (and consequences) of CMEs and Solar Flares here.

Some Wiki definitions?

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a significant release of plasma and accompanying magnetic field from the solar corona. They often follow solar flares and are normally present during a solar prominence eruption. The plasma is released into the solar wind, and can be observed in coronagraph imagery.

So, what's the question exactly?

If you've seen the video linked above, then you know that CMEs release a lot of solar ejecta (plasma). The Earth's Magnetic field takes care of them in a way that we barely knew things like these even existed before some really advanced equipment came along.

So, Question - What effects do CMEs have on planets like Mercury?

I had trouble finding and/or verifying any resource that I found on this question. Can anybody help?

P.S. Any help with the tags will also be appreciated.

Answer 1

Much like Earth, Mercury also has a magnetic field, only much weaker. Because of this, the high velocity charged particles accompanying CMEs distort Mercury's magnetic field at a much greater magnitude than it does earth. Also, because it extends beyond the sun's corona, it has the potential to burn the sun facing side of Mercury's surface even more than usual. Because of the high solar winds accompanying the CMEs it has the potential to actually strip particles off the surface of Mercury to become space dust. CMEs contain high radiation, large amounts of high velocity charged particles (causing a HUGE magnetic flux/field), and extreme solar winds. (among some other things) so any way that these phenomena will normally affect Mercury will happen during a Coronal Mass Ejection