New Topical Collection published in Space Science Reviews (Open Access)
A new collection of 8 review articles has been completed and is available online in Space Science Reviews, a printed book version will be published as volume 84 of the Space Sciences Series of ISSI.
Studying the evolution of the surfaces and atmospheres of planetary bodies in the solar system is fundamental to our understanding of the present state of the solar system. Exospheres are the interfaces between the planetary body and the open space, so that, studying the exospheric filling and loss processes is the way to expand knowledge of the body’s evolution. While the exospheres are present around any kind of planetary body, they are quite different if we consider the bodies with an atmosphere and those without a collisional gas envelope. In the latter case the exosphere is directly connected to the surface, thus, it is called surface-bounded exosphere, since the surface release processes are also the exospheric filling ones and atoms and molecules collide with the surface far more frequently than collisions with each other.
Edited by Anna Milillo, Menelaos Sarantos, Benjamin D. Teolis, Go Murakami, and Peter Wurz, this collection presents results from the ISSI Workshop “Surface Bounded Exospheres and Interactions in the Solar System”, held 20–24 January 2020, which reviewed the knowledge on the surface-bounded exosphere conditions, generation, variability and loss processes, from theoretical, observational and experimental points of view. The output collects the present state of knowledge on this subject and drafts a roadmap for future investigations in view of the next missions, i.e., BepiColombo to Mercury or orbiters and landers to be operated on the Moon.