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Little Mercury May Be Shrinking Faster than Scientists Expected
Researchers say crater debris has hidden Mercury’s wrinkles, and the planet may have contracted 10% to 30% more than earlier estimates.
- On Thursday, researchers published a study in Geophysical Research Letters suggesting Mercury has contracted 10% to 30% more than previous models indicated, with impact-crater debris obscuring evidence of this significant shrinkage.
- Lead author Gaku Nishiyama, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center, explained that geologically young impact debris masked the planet's shortening structures, which formed as Mercury cooled over roughly 4.5 billion years.
- The new estimate equates to a total diameter loss of roughly 12 miles since formation, exceeding the 2013 conference finding of about 11 kilometers shrinkage.
- Data from the European Space Agency's BepiColombo spacecraft, which recently began its arrival sequence, will capture higher-resolution imagery to measure topography and contraction with unprecedented precision.
- "If their results hold, and I'm confident they will, then we'll have taken a step further in investigating planets we can't yet visit in person," said Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.
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We have known for years. Mercury is shrinking. It was in the mid-1970s, thanks to the historical data sent by NASA’s Mariner 10 space probe, when scientists first detected the existence of huge geological escarpments and 'wrinkles' tearing its surface. Later, the MESSENGER mission confirmed those suspicions by mapping the planet almost completely. But why is this happening? Like the rest of the rocky worlds of our Solar System, Mercury was born …
·Madrid, Spain
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Total News Sources24
Leaning Left11Leaning Right3Center7Last UpdatedBias Distribution53% Left
Bias Distribution
- 53% of the sources lean Left
53% Left
L 53%
C 33%
14%
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