Solar wind energy transfer to planetary magnetospheres and ionospheres is controlled by magnetic reconnection, a process that determines the degree of connectivity between the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and a planet's magnetic field. During MESSENGER's second flyby of Mercury, a steady southward IMF was observed and the magnetopause was threaded by a strong magnetic field, indicating a reconnection rate ~10 times that typical at Earth. Moreover, a large flux transfer event was observed in the magnetosheath, and a plasmoid and multiple traveling compression regions were observed in Mercury's magnetotail, all products of reconnection. These observations indicate that Mercury's magnetosphere is much more responsive to IMF direction and dominated by the effects of reconnection than that of Earth or the other magnetized planets.

The structure of Mercury's dayside magnetosphere is investigated during three extreme solar wind dynamic pressure events. Two were the result of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and one was from a high-speed stream (HSS). The inferred pressures for these events are~45 to 65 nPa. The CME events produced thick, low-β (where β is the ratio of plasma thermal to magnetic pressure) plasma depletion layers and high reconnection rates of 0.1-0.2, despite small magnetic shear angles across the magnetopause of only 27 to 60°. For one of the CME events, brief,~1-2 s long diamagnetic decreases, which we term cusp plasma filaments, were observed within and adjacent to the cusp. These filaments may map magnetically to flux transfer events at the magnetopause. The HSS event produced a high-β magnetosheath with no plasma depletion layer and large magnetic shear angles of 148 to 166°, but low reconnection rates of 0.03 to 0.1. These results confirm that magnetic reconnection at Mercury is very intense, and its rate is primarily controlled by plasma β in the adjacent magnetosheath. The distance to the subsolar magnetopause is reduced during these events from its mean of 1.45 Mercury radii (R M ) from the planetary magnetic dipole to between 1.03 and 1.12 R M . The shielding provided by induction currents in Mercury's interior, which temporarily increase Mercury's magnetic moment, was negated by reconnection-driven magnetic flux erosion.