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Mercury Shrinking Faster Than Expected, New Study Suggests
Confirmed
In Short: A new study indicates that Mercury is contracting at a faster rate than previously believed, potentially losing an additional 6.8 miles in radius since its formation.
A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that Mercury is shrinking faster than expected, with a loss in diameter of up to 23 kilometers, or about 14 miles, according to scientists from the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Space Research.
The rough surface of Mercury, continually reshaped by debris from impact craters, may have hidden the true extent of the planet's shrinkage, according to the researchers. The findings could shed light on other contracting worlds in our solar system.
Lead author Gaku Nishiyama, affiliated with Hokkaido University in Japan, and his team compared maps showing faults and other geologic signs of contraction with newer maps highlighting surface roughness. Their analysis suggests that the actual rate of shrinking has been underestimated, potentially by as much as 30%.
The news comes one week after the European and Japanese spacecraft BepiColombo, expected to enter orbit around Mercury in November, shed its cruising platform and advanced toward the planet. The mission aims to confirm how much Mercury is withering as a result of internal cooling.
What's confirmed
- Scientists from the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Space Research reported Thursday that Mercury’s shrinkage may be 30% greater than previously believed – a loss in diameter of as much as 14 miles (23 kilometers).
- Mercury’s rough surface, continually reshaped by debris hurled from impact craters, may have hidden the true extent of the loss, according to the researchers whose findings appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
- BepiColombo’s laser instrument should confirm how much Mercury is withering as a result of internal cooling, said Gaku Nishiyama, the study’s lead author who is taking part in the space mission.
- Our solar system’s smallest and innermost planet has been shrinking ever since its formation 4.5 billion years ago.
- Only one other spacecraft has ever visited Mercury, NASA’s Mariner 10 in the 1970s.
What's still developing
- A new study shows that little, wrinkly Mercury may be shrinking faster than expected, the cosmos’ version of a grape shriveling into a raisin under the sun.
- The process is ongoing, and it might be happening faster than we thought.
- Planetary scientists knew that Mercury had been shrinking as its interior cooled down.
- It could be between 10 and 30 percent more, which suggests that the planet’s radius has lost an extra 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) since the planet’s formation, more than previous analysis suggested.
- The wrinkles, technically called shortening features, are expected to happen everywhere, but the many craters on the surface make such features difficult to spot.
- Surprising new NASA-funded research suggests that Mercury is contracting even today, joining Earth as a tectonically active planet.NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington/USGS/Arizona State Univ Yes, our solar system sibling is getting smaller, and faster than scientists originally predicted.