Mercury’s interior is similar to Earth’s, with a crust, mantle, and core. The molten core powers the planet’s weak magnetic field, while both are rocky with iron cores. Mercury’s complex dynamics create an unusual magnetic field.
From gravity estimates, the team found that Mercury likely has a highly unusual interior structure — an exceptionally large iron core overlain by a solid layer of iron sulfide and a thin outer shell. A measurement yielding a value of C m/C hosts a liquid layer at depth that decouples the motion of the outer shell from the liquid interior on the planet.
The geometry and dominant physical processes of Mercury’s unique magnetosphere inferred from MESSENGER data, including the solar wind environment, are reviewed. The new findings on the size of Mercury’s solid inner core will help scientists model the flow within its molten outer shell.
Some scientists compare Mercury to a cannonball because its metal core fills nearly 85 percent of the volume of the planet. Mercury’s peculiar magnetic field provides evidence that iron turns from a liquid to a solid at the core’s outer boundary. Compressional features, such as numerous compression folds or rupes, crisscross the plains.
Among the four inner Solar System planets, Mercury is the smallest and very dense, with its vast iron core dominating its internal structure. An unusual interior could explain the differences in Mercury’s magnetic field when compared to Earth.
In conclusion, Mercury’s unique interior structure, despite its rocky nature, could help explain the differences in its magnetic field compared to Earth.
📹 The First Real Images Of Mercury – What We Found?
In this video, we’ll be discussing the first real images of Mercury, what we found and what implications it has. Ever since the …
What is the inside structure of Mercury?
Mercury is the second densest planet after Earth, with a large metallic core and a thin outer shell. Its surface resembles Earth’s Moon, with numerous impact craters from meteoroids and comet collisions. These features are named after famous artists, musicians, or authors, such as Dr. Seuss and Alvin Ailey. Large impact basins, such as Caloris and Rachmaninoff, were created by asteroid impacts on the planet’s surface. Mercury’s interior has cooled and contracted over billions of years, resulting in smooth terrain and cliffs that rise hundreds of miles long and up to a mile high.
Why does Mercury have no rings?
The exact origin of the solar system remains a subject of scientific debate. The solar system formed from a massive cloud of gas and particles billions of years ago, which clumped together to form planets. Some of the leftover dust formed moons, while others formed rings. Large rings on inner planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are likely impossible to form due to the presence of frozen icy dust and the sun’s too hot temperature. Mars has two moons, one of which is close to the planet, and some astrophysicists predict it will break apart and become a ring over the next 50 million years.
Why is mercury’s core so big?
The Solar System is believed to have formed from a cloudy disc of gas and dust surrounding the Sun and planets, which served as a conduit for the Sun’s magnetic field. As the magnetic field diminished, Mercury formed in the optimal location, proximate to the Sun’s most robust magnetic field, which resulted in the planet’s substantial iron core. This process was responsible for determining the composition of the terrestrial planets.
What is the interior structure of Mercury?
Mercury is a planet with a large iron core and a thin mantle, occupying about 50 of its interior by volume and 70 by mass. It may be compared to Earth on the inside and the Moon on the outside, but the analogies cannot be too far. Mercury’s surface has a distinct early history, with smooth plains resembling Lunar maria, intercrater plains containing small craters, and rugged highlands resembling the Moon’s regions. A mosaic of photos taken from Mariner 10 in 1974 summarizes the surface’s character.
What is unique about Mercury’s interior?
Scientists have discovered that Mercury’s metal core, which fills nearly 85% of the planet’s volume, is a large mystery compared to other rocky planets in the solar system. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, provide insights into the formation of the solar system and the evolution of rocky planets over time. The molten core powers Mercury’s weak magnetic field, which has cooled more rapidly than Earth’s, and may help predict how Earth’s magnetic field will change as the core cools. The similarities and differences between Mercury’s cores may provide clues about the formation of the solar system and the evolution of rocky planets over time.
What are 4 unique characteristics of Mercury?
Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System, is the closest to the Sun and one of the closest to Earth. It is shrinking and has the most craters in the Solar System, with the largest crater fitting Western Europe. Mercury’s existence has been known since ancient times, and it has helped us understand the creation of our Solar System and how other star systems could be formed. At a distance of only about 1/3 of Earth’s distance to the Sun, Mercury is an interesting and fascinating subject to study.
What makes Mercury different from the other inner planets?
Mercury, the smallest and closest planet to the sun, is the second densest after Earth, with a massive metallic core that spans 2, 200 to 2, 400 miles (3, 600 to 3, 800 kilometers) wide. Its outer shell is only 300 to 400 miles thick. The planet’s massive core and composition, including an abundance of volatile elements, have puzzled scientists for years. The Sumerians also knew of Mercury at least 5, 000 years ago, often associated with Nabu, the god of writing, according to a site connected to NASA’s MESSENGER mission.
What makes Mercury unique?
Mercury is the sole liquid metal present on Earth. It is characterized by its slippery and heavy nature, with a mass of two tablespoons of mercury equivalent to approximately one pound. Additionally, mercury tends to fall if held, further complicating its manipulation.
What’s inside Mercury?
Mercury is a rocky planet with a substantial iron core, which occupies approximately three-quarters of its diameter. This core, which is approximately the size of the Moon, constitutes approximately 70% of Mercury’s total mass, making it the planet in the Solar System with the highest iron content. In addition, an outer shell of approximately 350 miles in thickness is situated above the aforementioned core.
Why is Mercury so different?
Mercury is a stable element due to its weak bond between its outermost electrons, which weakens the pull between atoms. This weakening causes the organization of a solid to break down and atoms to move more freely. When atoms bond together, some of their kinetic energy is converted to the energy of the bond, making it easier to break them apart. Mercury doesn’t need to be warm or hot to become liquid, unlike other metals with more energy stored in their bonds.
Its liquid status was known over three thousand years ago, but it’s not something we would have predicted had the element only been discovered during the periodic table filling in. Mercury’s combination of density and being liquid makes it well suited for thermometers, barometers, and measuring blood pressure. Gold and thallium, its neighbors on the periodic table, melt at over 1000 and 300 degrees centigrade, respectively.
What is Mercury unique properties?
Mercury, a naturally occurring heavy metal, is toxic to living organisms due to its atomic mass of 200. 59 grams per mole and specific gravity of 13. 5 times that of water. It has a melting point of -38. 9 o C and a boiling point of 356. 7 o C, and is the only metal to remain in liquid form at room temperature. Mercury droplets are shiny and silver-white with a high surface tension, appearing rounded when on flat surfaces. It can combine with other metals to form amalgams, but does not form amalgam with iron, allowing it to be shipped in standard iron flasks containing 76 pounds of liquid mercury.
Mercury has a high vapour pressure and the highest volatility of any metal, vaporizing into a colorless, odourless gas. It is a fair conductor of electricity but a poor conductor of heat. Mercury has three possible electrical charge conditions: elemental mercury (Hg 0), two positively charged cationic states (Hg 2+ (mercuric) and Hg 1+ (mercurous), and organic substances like dimethylmercury (Me 2 Hg).
As an element, mercury is not biodegradable, but it is converted among its various forms through abiotic and biogeochemical transformations and atmospheric transportation. Despite changes in its form and availability to living organisms, mercury persists in the environment.
📹 What They Didn’t Teach You at School about Planet Mercury | NASA’s MESSENGER Discoveries
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Thank you so very much. I really love the way that you present the science and break it down into manageable and understandable concepts. I love astronomy wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger, but yeah having an air problem so can’t do that and your voice is so relaxing. Thank you so much for taking the time to research this and share it with the rest of us. Big hugs and have an awesome day.
Also of interest, quoting from the Wikipedia page on the planet Mercury: “Mercury orbits the Sun in a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance, meaning that relative to the background stars, it rotates on its axis exactly three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun.(a) Counterintuitively, due to Mercury’s slow rotation, an observer on the planet would see only one Mercurian solar day (176 Earth days) every two Mercurian solar years (88 Earth days each).” (See the Wikipedia article for the citation references.) By contrast, Earth has a 24 hour solar day, but a full rotation of Earth relative to the background stars occurs in approximately 23 hours and 56 minutes.
Awesome info….Love astronomy and our solar system. How I wish I could have been a part of some of the scientific research and study of this and other things, it would have brightened my day, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’ve missed something special though and now I only get to see through the eyes of what others have accomplished within the work of the scientific field. This keeps us on our toes and helps to know that what we think we know is always changing and giving us new insights and into showing just how precious our plant Earth really is. HIGH 5….👍👍❤️❤️🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
So well done and all free. Thanks so much to all involved. 46% oxygen really surprised me along with water and ice at its poles. It’s hard to believe that a species could be so intelligent and capable yet so flawed and harmful to itself. But nonetheless good people endeavor to achieve good things for all humanity.
OK! I am VERY wary about science based websites when it comes to the subject of outer space bodies because soo many are either monotonous or have a REALLY bad narrator. I think a good narrator is what can sell a doc. So in saying that I must say that this website is SUPERB! Only 2minutes in I was mesmerized! You got a new subber : )
I helped almost a couple of years ago my daughter with researching for a school assignment and I noticed, then, that the same thing was said without verification. If the planet rotates extremely slow, how the heck one day on Earth, faster then, equates to 59 (??) on Mercury? It should be the other way around, if the planet revolves slowly, 59 days on Earth are one on Mercury. Am I missing something here or people just copy and paste information without even considering a bit about it? Thank you!
The “Hollows” at 19:34 appear to have enormous sand dunes in the small hollow between the two much larger, upper depressions. The dunes look like the part of one underlying alluvial plane. These would be created by liquid most likely, or by complex winds. Liquid would be my guess, which came down from a cut in the large depression on top of it.
The aphelion of Mercury is never in the same position relative to the stars and moves slowly. Scientists could not explain this. However, when Einstein’s time dilation equations were applied, it accounted for the movement of Mercury’s orbit within 1% accuracy. It was the first significant proof of special relativity.
The only image that hasn’t been too badly tampered with is the image @16:03. The whitish areas are the structures they didn’t want you to see but if if zoom in on it you will see structures similar to those on the moon. You see pipelines and what looks like buildings, several domes. Nasa are a bunch of punks who lie to their tax-payers.
Quote from one of the first narrator’s statements: “They (the craters) are the rarest types … unknown to modern science”. Well, if they are unknown to science, how can you make that claim. The error (0:19) occurs from a stupid sentence with two different statements whereas “unknown to science” only should apply to the second part – but it does not. Listen again. GRAMMAR gentlemen GRAMMAR. If you make two different sentences everybody (including me) will understand. Certainly – no date and time of publication and many other logical problems. Just to name two: Supernova is singular, the plural is Supernovae (latin). The reasoning for 88 earth days pointing to 2.5 x nearer orbit than earth is completely wrong, yet the statements says “therefore”. It allows for the conclusion that any planet orbiting a sun 2.5 times closer than another has to do with the relation between 365 ~ 88. False.
This is a great article, but the words you say do not always make logical sense. A day on earth is not 58/59 days on mercury, you got this backwards, even though you followed up by saying that it takes x months for x days on earth compared to mercury. A day on earth is 1/58 or 1/59th of a day on Mercury, or a day on Mercury is 58/59 days on Earth. Language matters, as if the receiver of exchanged words can not accurately understand the message, then communication has failed, not matter how great it may look. Second, machine learning aside, fartherest at 7:33 is not a word. So, I would associate your mistake above to machine learning as well. And, this is not a translation error, this is a planning error. As is tempeeurture … I stopped perusal, while the imagery was great, I could no longer listen to a machine speak … and this machine speaker is amazing … it is almost authentically human in its mannerisms. Nice job!! Nor is this an accent issue … I am trying to figure it out. If this is not the case, I apologize, but work needs to be done.
1:40 “Mercury rotates very slowly around it’s axis… 1 day on Earth would be 59 days on Mercury…” – I think the wording might be backwards there. This makes it sound like Mercury rotates very quickly. Also, “…that is, the day and night on the planet lasts for 3 months..” – I feel like 59 days is closer to 2 months.
1:40 “One day on Earth would be 59 days on Mercury” ? The way I read this is that while a person on Earth experiences one day, “One day on Earth”, a person on Mercurty experiences 59 days “would be 59 days on Mercury”. That means Mercury is spinning aaround its axis 59 times faster than Earth? Which is not what you wanted to say.
I really like the presentation of this article–the soft edges of the distinctly well-enunciated, gently southern (US) narrator’s accent was very pleasing, and lends itself well to masterfully conveying educational content–as opposed to the “Zeus is speaking from his throne on Mt. Olympus to dumb mortals” melodrama often used, today…;) Very refreshing! (A small, but important distinction, imo.) From the comments, I can see that others noticed it as well, and were also similarly impressed. Educators take heed. It stands out for me and others because it is a presentational style not commonly seen/used these days (unfortunately!). Or, maybe it’s just that I watch too many YouTube article clips that purport to be “scientific”!…;) I noted only one very small but fairly major error in the entire presentation, and that is found in the beginning intro, where it is stated that Mercury’s magnetic field is strong enough to deflect a supernova/e star flare…;) Uh, no…;) As noted in the entire presentation, some normally encountered solar-wind particles will be deflected by the field, but even the Earth’s much stronger magnetic field would avail nothing in the event of a direct supernova flare hit from trusty old Sol! And in the event of such a supernova extinction event in our system, Mercury and possibly even Earth would be completely subsumed inside the expanding star itself in such a supernova. The damage would be terrific and permanent. Of course, since Mercury is a dead planet, it might emerge “unscathed” after the terminal flare subsides, but that has nothing to do with the magnetic field of Mercury!
So, looking at the dust ring that follows Mercury’s orbital path. If that material was added to the surface of Mercury would the ratio of core material to mantle material be more in line with what is expected? Does the lower gravity of Mercury allow larger amounts of the material from a meteorite impact to escape and gather in the observed dust ring. Whereas other larger planets are able to return most of the ejected material back to their surface. So the larger core could just be due to a higher rate of meteoric erosion due to the planets small size and the dust ring be a byproduct of that high erosion rate?
Come on, man. (1:36) “One day on Earth would be 59 days on Mercury.” You have that backwards. It takes 59 Earth-days for Mercury to fully rotate. And, it’s not 59 days; it’s 176 Earth days. (1:43) “The day and night lasts for three months.” 59 days is NOT three months. Have you ever actually seen a calendar? (1:46) “…in a 3:2 ratio”. Just in case anyone was curious, I refused to continue after “spin-orbit resonance with the star”. Not 3:2, it’s 176:88, which is 2:1. Famously 2:1. Exactly 2:1. People fucking talk about this very surprising coincidence all the time. Even if it was 59 days, that’s 2:3 instead of 3:2. Neither math nor science goes unoffended in this article.
Given that 98% of the world uses Metric and that in the US, NASA uses metric, along with the US Medical, Aeronautical, Armed Forces, Car and Computer industries, you need to stop converting measurements into US Imperial. If US people have a problem with metric, let them convert the numbers. I’d bet most of your viewers work comfortably with Metric, even those from the US.
ok my thing is…how in the FUG does merc or venus even have DIRT or like…a GROUND with how HOT they are?! do you know how insane that is?! THEY HAVE ROCKS! WHY ARENT THEY PURE FIRE PLANETS?! oh wait this is space and fire doesn’t work in space, thats why? still its hot AF how does it even have rocks!
I am confused, and it MUST be my fault. However, the narrator says the probe “took 200 thousand photos” AND “was able to take 2,500 pictures.” Huh? What am I missing here? I’ve listened to that segment over and over. 200,000 photos AND 2,500 pictures? Maybe someone here who’s smarter than I can explain why I’m tripping over these two, consecutive, sentences.
1:45 That’s not totally correct. A full day night cycle on Mercury is actually two full orbits (two years), or 177 days. One Sidereal day (one full rotation relative to the fixed background stars) is 59 days. At that point it completed 2/3 of an orbit around the Sun but only 1/3 of it’s surface has been traversed by the Sun (1/3 solar day). At one year only half the surface has been transited by the Sun.
At first i thought i may like this guy’s articles, but as usual he had to start spewing standard evilutionary claptrap about rescue devices such as ‘celestial collisions,’ which evilutionists use whenever planets or moons don’t conform to their warped ideas on how the Universe SHOULD look if it were created naturally, and totally ignore evidence that shows exactly how it IS – Divinely Created – and NOT how they WANT it to be – Godless and devoid of any and all meaning and/or purpose…
hint “science” is not a monolithic thing, but has very different fields. so instead saying “scientists” pls. tell which ones. bc atm, everything i hear could have come from social science. (and we all know: THAT is not the case.) – it has become a real pest in the recent 3 years “scientists said” – yeah, which ones? (bc if you check the fields of who said what, …put a watertight bucket next to you, you gonna need it.) edit: also you messed up the first conversion miles -> km (crater-sizes; a mile is longer than a kilometer, so 7 miles are never 4km (rather 11km (back of the napkin-math))
Why vayalur in vridhachallam is tied up with ex MLA admk roudies baskar, anbazhagan till todays date???????? And why everyone in vayalur wanted to put me in mental hospital in pims pondicherry? And why vayalur is connected with nasa America criminals?? And why do Obama baskar and entire vayalur tortures me for forwarding an official letter reg. Child lost and other issues to present pm. Mr. Modi ji????
Could you imagine if our visible universe is actually a microscopic drop on a magnifying glass slide. That this universe is actually a science project for an infinitely giant race of beings. That we in our little solar system are no larger in comparison to a quark on this other beings measurement scale.
the maths on the day and year is hurting my head. a year is the same position in the orbit. a day is one rotation. but the day length, the solar exposure, is something else again. best as i can figure with two empty tins is the “day ” is longer than the year by…1/6? if its rotating one way, or about 1/6 of a year the other way. 103-4 days on earth or 14ish… and due to the epicyclic nature, the “midday” is hellishly long with fast dawn and dusks… but so is “midnight”…
Fascinating. However, you should switch the phrases “scientists know” with “scientists theorize” for accuracy. Technically speaking, scientists don’t “know” as much as they theorize and believe. After all, no one has actually physically gone to Mercury and have seen its creation. These are great theories. I think the only thing I hadn’t heard before was about dust cloud Mercury moves in… which is rather interesting.
I totally support space exploration, the space program and all that we can do to access the universe and populate it. Nevertheless, I have a hard time understanding spending so much money exploring a planet that we likely will never be able to land on, or want to, certainly not in the foreseeable future…even if it were made of perfect diamonds, mountains of pure platinum, uranium, and gold. Let’s get to Mars…terraform it and mine the asteroid belt. Lets chart all the asteroids that contain easily recoverable precious metals, get to them, and make money on all this work.
You don’t sit here on Earth and try to tell me what thae core of a Planet is made of. Five min in and that made me quit the vid. You know the temp? I bet the story would cgange if they actually went there. Saturn? Jupiter? Same. The temp on the surface of the Sun? Haven’t been there, never will. (can’t even go to the Moon)
The MOST interesting thing about Mercury that you forgot to mention is the Charged Particle display on the Mercurian nightside. A constant rain of glowing charged particles from the sun can be seen as a psychadelic display from the nightside at surface level as they streak around the Mercurian magnetospheric bowshock to go trailing away from the nightside. To an observer on the nightside surface, this would be a mindbending sight
2:02 Earth’s bulk composition is almost exactly the same as mars, that is if you took the planets apart seperated them into the elements and shaped them into convenient ingots the number of iron ingots, silicon, aluminum ect. Would be pretty much the same just that mars would have 1/10th as many of each, earth is more dense due to it’s material being more compressed due to the greater pressure that its material exerts. If you make Mercury earth sized it would rapidly contract by 20-30% as the iron in its core was forced into a smaller volume and if you used Mercury density material to make a planet as big as earth the amount of mass would be significantly more than Earth’s mass. Either scenario would result in a planet with much stronger surface gravity than earth.
That’s tremendous, I have always felt compelled to pursue knowledge and power in order to contribute to the betterment of humanity. Been seeking a means to be influential and find out more knowledge about the human race and about the things not everyone is destined to know. I wish to fulfill the goal of enlightenment passed down by our forebears.
i love astrums articles so much, ever since i could remember i always had such a curiosity about space. from like 4 or 5 i was askign everyone around me questikns about space, looking up stuff on my moms phone, and as i grew it normalized for me. liking space as much as i did semmed normal that i was so disappointed in school. when i was in the eighth grade the most depth we went into space was how gravity works. it made me so so so upset . turns out not everyone had that hyperfixation on the cosmos. so i enjoy perusal articles like these. they remind me of my childhood, a time before worry, before stress, and a time where a kid could be a kid.
This is utterly fascinating! I’ve been learning about Mercury as I focus on Moho in Kerbal Space Program… even with the heavily simplified orbital dynamics in that game, it’s very difficult to send a probe there, mostly for the same reasons. I was hoping for an explanation of how Mercury’s orbit can be used as a proof for the Theory of Relativity, but the geology and particle physics, as well as MESSENGER’s 6-year transit, were every bit as amazing. I do have one suggestion: one can usually fact-check one’s pronunciation of foreign and unfamiliar names through Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Unlike Google, they don’t rely on auto-generated content.
The sheer amount of work and eplanative graphicary done for this article is literally mind-boggling! I have watched and enjoyed many articles from this website, but this one is of standard far beyond any of my expectations. I have to thank you and your team for in less than hour fully informing me on so many, so interesting data collected on what is now one of my favourate planets…. You have a subscriber now (One that is ashamed of not subscribing sooner)
The Pantheon Fossae is easy to explain, if you think about it. You mentioned it in the article — there’s lots of silicates on Mercury. When one thinks of the word “silicate”, this brings to mind things like opal and glass. Clearly the heat of the sun is heating the surface enough so that a silicate layer forms on the surface, and then stresses — perhaps of impact or the compression you speak of — formed cracks in that silicate.
idk if you were theblme who i heard this from but i heard a theory about mercury that it is actually the remnants of a former larger planets core, a planet that got blasted to smithereens, possibly by another protoplanet impact. the entire planet almost exploded away but only left behind its mettalic core. This could actually explain its orbit, its rotation size, and density and composition, which seems to me the most plausible
Phenomenal! Thank you so much for this, it’s brilliantly entertaining and your presentation of the research information really drew me in. The most intriguing part (so far, I’ve not seen the whole article) was the view of the sky from the surface, that was awesome! I look forward to understanding more once BepiColombo arrives. I hope to last long enough to see that mission.
I really like your articles, but lately I see a lot of repeated subjects and reposted articles on your website, if I remember correctly. I think this is the third time I see this Mercury article. I know that our knowledge of space is limited and we can run out of planets and moons quickly. How about talking about something we don’t hear much about, like China’s space program? China’s space program and space station are often sidelined in mainstream websites and media so it’s kind of obscure science to us in America and Europe! I just saw they unveiled their new lunar suit on another article! Looks terrific!
Perhaps, like glass, the impactor that formed Pantheon Forsae punched through the crust producing the cracks like a bullet or rock will punch through leaving cracks. Most of the kinetic energy would have been delivered to the core underneath rather than to heating the crust and any central peak, if one formed at all, could easily been obscured by the later impact. If the impactor was small, very dense, and traveling at a high velocity the hole punched through the crust wold have been relatively small. An iron asteroid originating in the asteroid belt or further out could easily gain enough kinetic energy to accomplish the feat. It can also explain why there is only one as it would be quite rare. If it didn’t impact Mercury then it would either fall into the Sun or if it missed the Sun would likely have sufficient velocity to escape the Solar system and go into interstellar space.
I, too, thought everyone knew that Mercury was the first planet in our solar system until I came across someone about a year ago that thought Mars was the first planet and even argued with me about it despite me showing them proof they were wrong. So yeah, I definitely have a less faith in humanity’s knowledge of the solar system now. I can understand how someone might get the order of the gas giants incorrect, I guess, but I thought it was safe to assume we all knew Mercury was first. Nope. Lol
Hi, great presentation but lacking Mercury’s comparisons to other planets and moons of the Solar System. Mercury (the smallest planet in the solar system) is considerably smaller than the next biggest planet, Mars, but is considerably denser than Mars. In fact, for silca-based planets in the Solar System (simply, smaller than gas giants or “super Earths”), Mercury is slightly lower average density (5.43 g/cm^3) than the Earth’s density (5.51 g/cm^3), and greater than Earth’s moon (3.34 g/cm^3). Mercury is also smaller than two largest moons in the solar system; Ganymede and Titan, but definitely larger than the dwarf planet, Pluto (slightly over twice the radius). There is a contraversial theory that Mercury might be a chthonic planet, i.e the core remains of a Neptune-sized gas giant planet that formed closer to the Sun. There is now plenty of evidence of “hot Jupiters” exoplanets close to their stars, in fact, considerably closer than where Mercury is now to the sun. This is because relative lack of evidence of Late Bombardment craters on Mercury, in comparison to the Moon (plenty of craters on Mercury, not just the average size of the Late Bombardment craters that covers the moon). If course, Mercury may have been considerably more geologically active with lava sheets that covered these Late Bombardment signs, rather than dense atmosphere of a mid-sized gas giant that shrouded the chthonic core from this. Not enough evidence from lack of Late Bombardment craters, however, Mercury is expanding or “rebounding”, as explained in this article, with plenty of evidence such as extensive rifts and ridges on the surface.
Love your articles and the content. However, I regularly hear you state incorrect stats and information. You said the James Webb has only a decade long life for science, when they have now concluded that the launch and subsequent orbital insertion burns were so effective and efficient that they now think JWST will live a possible 25 years. Just try to check your information thoroughly before posting your articles. Like I said, I love your website, I just also have the opinion that it’s incredibly important for a science website to get their information correct. I’m truly rooting for you and this website. Cheers 🍻
Am I the only one to think that NASA is like that one student in class that says he will get a F but proceeds to get a A++ and just says, “yeah well, uh, this is far beyond my expectatshions🤓🤓🤓” like with every mission? They say: “We designed it for 10 minutes, but uhm actshually it continued it’s mission for 10 yearsh🤓🤓🤓”
I’m no scientist but when you mentioned the fractured area of pantheon fossi (spelling?) you said it was like hitting glass. Glass is made from super heated sand. Could the sun have heated an area of Mercury made of sand like material, turning into a glass like material, then hit with debris? I’m probably wrong for so many reasons but this was my first thought. Great article, love your website
I really like the compilations as well as a lot of your older articles. I got to be honest though, the new stuff you put out beaming rays of clickbait with force of a thousand suns leaves such a distaste in my mouth that I am no longer a follower. This is a corporate approach, a numbers game. Create for people, not for numbers. Every piece of data, every subscribe count, every dollar, every like and every letter in every comment is a number that contributes to the ultimate currency of todays world and it’s so dehumanizing it makes me sick. I’m trying to discuss, though I know some angry dude might show up in the replies and say something clever and get all the likes and he will be on top… because the number is higher. It is really sad.
they taught us things about planets at school? that doesn’t sound like the school I know when I was a kid XD they only taught us all 9 planets (this was the 90’s so if you try to correct me I’ll hate you for it I will never forgive the AIU in 2006) when I was a kid and they were like done with it,that’s it,I only know the planet names XD cause ou school was like ok kids we’re going to learn the names of the planets and them boom we’re done
I started hearing “Larvae” instead of “Lava” with this on in the background and now I can’t unhear it. “Rachmaninov is particularly interesting, as here you can see the strong indicators of LARVAE bubbling up through from beneath the surface.” “Despite being less ‘run-y’ than Walter, LARVAE can still travel great distances before stopping.” “This is because once the surface of LARVAE hardens, it forms an insulating layer that keeps the rest of the LARVAE within protected, so it can ‘flow freely’.” “When LARVAE is left on its own, it will try to create the flattest surface possible” “But… where did this LARVAE come from? There are two theories…” “THIS kind of LARVAE is called ‘Impact Meld’:)” “Now that we know that smoooothness 😎 is a sign of LARVAE flow” “We suddenly know that there are NUMEROUS OTHER CRATERS ON MERCURY THAT SIMILARLY MUST HAVE BEEN FILLED WITH LARVAE” (…)
About Apollodorus and the glass like fractures: This might be utterly stupid due to my lack of knowledge but the first thing that came to my mind was whether the surface of Mercury in that location could have contained a lot of glass or an entire layer of glass. Volcanoes on Earth can create obsidian and the ancient Egyptians used a pale yellow milky type of glass in their jewelry. This glass came from the desert and if I remember correctly it is created by the intense heat generated from meteorites. I suppose this only happens when there’s a certain type of sand present but I don’t know. I was just thinking that maybe the “right” type of sand was only present in the area around Apollodorus explaining why the special fractures are only found in this one place.
In a very real sense, Mercury is further away than Neptune. It is easy to think in terms of physical distances i.e. AU. It is however much more valuable to think in terms of the potential hill between two objects. Mercury is an airless body deep within the sun’s gravitational well. Getting to Mercury is hard. Slowing down is exponentially harder. And there is no planet further inward to use for gravitational assists. The closest you can get to Mercury without burning at Mercury is Venus-Mercury transfer orbit. Which is not very close at all.
Meh.. it’s actually 2nd most extreme.. Earth takes that title by a long shot… this place is crazy mate. nowhere else is so volcanic, has such variety of ecologies or as much climatological chaos.. No where else is there a cornucopia of life engaged in a planet wide act of self destruction and creation at once.. nowhere else are there ultra-billions of microbial chemical and mineral exchanges happening at every second.. ..
It’s fascinating when ur able to look at these surfaces which haven’t been remade as on earth and u see the number of impacts in the many thousands and all the different sizes so u realize that space isn’t empty at all but filled with objects whiting this way and that. Fortunately for us we are such fleeting entities that we don’t witness many if any of this action. What’s also fascinating is the fact that as all these inner planets were formed originally as just red hot balls of molten rock and it cooled and thru the impact of these millions of objects and the actions on the surface the rock becomes beach sand and out of this broken rock somehow intelligent life arose. Arose from rock dust and water. How can this be? Of course this is the question we e pondered since we crawled from the dust.Its truely baffling how solid rock can become sentient beings, even if not so smart.
Mercury has the basis of creating a new home world for ourselves as soon as we figure out how to tug a planet and collide planets without creating a massive asteroid field, I mean flinging Mercury into Mars could create a planet comparable to Earth, the collision would probably create a sizable moon as well. A few million years and maybe the species what we evolve into could do it, even though by that point we should have more than enough real estate in other star systems. That large metallic core is still valuable. If we don’t use it for planet creation, we can still mine the heck out of it.
Okay there’s something I never understood So, I’ve heard that the magnetic field “lines” are just an imaginary tool to help with visualization, but a lot of stuff makes it seem like they’re actual things that exist Like when in this article he describes how they snap together.. how does that work if the lines aren’t real? Or am I misinformed and the lines do actually exist? I’m so confused
Once again Guys you keep stating gravity like it is a thing just like the craters you are claiming on Mercury which are formed from plasma discharges, and magnetic fields exist, and we know how magnetic fields react with other magnetic fields which can only be produced by flowing charge and that would be plasma and Brooklyn currents
Is there any article from the surface of Mercury? I remember that I tried to find one some years ago, but alas… We have not sent any rovers there, right? We could just shoot a probe with a camera without any wheels, just a camera with a tripod. Are there any sensors able to take articles at 500C? Any energy storage able to withstand this heat? Any sort of antenna to send the signal to some companion ship in the orbit? A 5 min vid would already be great! And this would advance science a lot! This tech would later save firefighters. I love talking about this at my English lessons.
While I was too young at the time to think this of the Little Blue Dot (or whatever) image; regarding the picture of Earth and his comment… Whole obviously HIGHLY unlikely, one of the photons arriving from Earth could have been reflected off of me. Maybe off my sunglasses or wedding ring. Maybe off a piece of silverware and out the window. The point is that – again unlikely, but still possible – We are out there in a way. Like a tree falling in the woods… even if nobody is perusal or listening, we are still here… making sounds… doing… being.
9:34 I suspect the Sun moving backwards from Mercury’s perspective is reminiscent of our Sun moving backwards from Earth’s perspective, as recorded in ‘Isaiah 38:8’. I suspect NASA has the ability to calculate this information, as per the movie Hidden Figures with Kevin Costner. If I recall correctly, Mercury will be in transit.
Here is something else they didn’t teach YOU in school about science. 1) There is no degree symbol used when referencing the temperature unit Kelvin. 2) The world is on the modern SI Metric System NOT the old, obsolete metric system used by the layman which has ambiguity between mass and weight. 15:34 “… and weighed 1100 kg … “. Wrong, the prob had a mass of 1100 kg and a weight of 10.8 kilo-Newton on the surface of the Earth. Kilogram is a unit of mass NOT weight. The mass of an object is the same value on Earth, floating around weightless in space and on the Moon. The weight, however, is much different at each of these locations. Weight is the product of mass multiplied by acceleration and has the units kilogram meter per second squared ( = a Newton). And secondly, if you were to use the old, obsolete metric system, you would call weight “kilogram-force” to differentiate it from “kilogram-mass”.
Why would we waste time and resources trying to colonize a planet so close to the sun? It’s obvious the mean temperature would go way above 60C. PSA- The mean temperature of Earth is 14-15C. And this already makes extreme temperatures of 70C and -80C possible in some areas of the world. Just think about that for a second.
Outstanding work! I have often wondered why we study the other planets and not Mercury. Now I know. I am so glad to live in this renaissance of electronic communication where I have learned so much at a mere keystroke. If only I could peek far into the future, say. 1,000 years ahead. Death is the thief of us all for we will never know all the secrets of the universe, better yet, the multiverse. Thank you for this terrific documentary.
Could Mercury possibly be Mars missing core? Must’ve blown out of that rift on the Martian service. Just around the corner from that big impact zone on Mars. I wonder where the water went? Possibly earth with its larger gravity, sucked it all up leading to the Noah’s ark story. Samarian text do suggest a larger blue moon in synchronous orbit over the Himalayas about 6000 years ago….
I can’t believe ” They ” didn’t teach us this . And shows how evil They are. Makes you want to go to the school where They didn’t teach me this and do a pirouette with 2 Mack 10’s . Thank you for telling me who to focus my Hate on . /Sarcasm … but maybe think about your headline, and what was your intent with it ? Cuz the world is way beyond innocent click baiting .
Why am I having a mental block trying to understand the day / year cycle? How does it take 2 years for Mercury to experience sunrise-sunset-sunrise? That doesn’t sound right. It takes 88 days for Mercury to orbit the sun (one year) but Mercury surely doesn’t take 176 days to accomplish one solar day… the math isn’t mathing … which I’m sure is purely on my end, but it’s confusing to me for some reason. 🤷🏻♂️
I’m wondering where the information about Mercury’s composition comes from, as we don’t even know what is within our moon. The surface composition can be very different from the internal one. Especially on planets without an atmosphere, as what we see from afar might all just be impact debris. We can only guess what their interior is like by examining things like seismic activity, mountains, magnetic fields and heat, but it’s still only a guess until we actually probe it with a drill but even then, the probe may only show what a small part of it is made of, completely missing that 90% of it is made of solid gold lol. Things will get REALLY interesting once we develop a way to deep scan minerals from orbit.
I know I’m very late on this article, but is it possible that pantheon fossae was first melted, either from lava flowing up or an asteroid hit (or both), and it cooled down to a glass-like surface that fractured upon further volcanic activity or another asteroid, and a last hit created a crater after dust and ash covered the area? That’s the most unfortunate spot on the planet apparently, especially when you see the plethora of smaller hits all around it.
Is there any evidence for the so-called “violent past” though? There are a lot of craters alright, but there’s also been enough millions of years for no 2 craters to ever have to be created and flowing with lava at the same time. Perhaps the impact rate is still about as high as it was millions of years ago?
So much of our world, when you think about it, is completely governed, dictated, expressed in the way it is because of the behavior of our “day”. The advent of calendars, then clocks, then watches, way trains function around the time periods on clocks governed by the 24 hour period…our entire behavior as a species would be unimaginably different if our sun danced around in the sky like it does on mercury. Thank you for the articles.
“About half the impacts should be hitting Mercury’s night side”. I’d go farther and say over 90% should be hitting Mercury’s night side. All the asteroids should be heading toward the sun, with Mercury being in the way, therefore should hit the side away from the sun. Only on rare occasions would an asteroid orbit similar to the Messenger space craft and hit Mercury on the lit side.
As such, nasa has overloaded the positive and negative ions on d upper atmosphere to break d ionisation process which ended up in failure of climatic seasonal rainfall in india 200yrs. Ago. Since 200 yrs. Seasonal rainfall failure and ground water level scarcity happened. Dat is d reason agriculture and farming development is not up to the level in india BCS of poor rainfall.
According to the Idiotic Association of Unbangables The International Astronomical Union (IAU), Mercury is a dwarf planet, not an actual planet. It didn’t clear it’s own orbit. That’s due to the Sun – System interaction. Mercury is too small to do anything on it’s own. No, I’m not salty about Pluto. Why would you think that?
Possibility on that fractured glass looking area is that it is volcanic glass for a volcano that froze on the night side while more magma was pushing up, causing the fractured glass look. Then the other crater occurred when an asteroid impacted that volcanic glass area when it facing the sun, thus didn’t cause additional cracking of the volcanic glass, and instead acted like normal a impact.
I read Mercurys megnetic field(s?) would weaken, maybe that “force” would strengthen again later (i read that magnetic fields force actually should be immense, but i wouldn’t remember due to what). Similar to perhaps gaining some volume again, like very slow pulsting effects “we” only measure an increase or a decrease not assuming the restorance within such a swing or wave, the other half of some puzzling. Like Phobos, tan asteroid moon of Mars that could perhaps rise in altitude one day. Mercury having a core pushed above the aequator would had happened due to a big impact, pushing the core “up” to the “solar systems north”. But rotating like this would let mercury appear like an unknown type of eyeball planet, just a “rolling eyeball planet” which is unprecedented. I even suppose that gravity in the solar system (rather) tends towards north, not simply due to the land masses on earth, but what’s the thing about that, is the “core” of the milky way pulling in gravity or something like the Great Attractor further away? or even some concentration in the magneto-verse surrounding the visual universe by 60 billion LJ in loops? Mercury being more massive then Ganymed or Titan (not the asteroid Ganymed) would resemble Neptune being so-called smaller but more massive then the rolling greek (Ew-rawn-ews). EvenPsyche can appear with that thinking pulling on asteroids. Mr. McColgen, you (would know you) are an ace not having to reside in an uninspired players sleeve.
46:40 Pantheon Fossae is the center of the Caloris Basin, one of the largest impact craters in the entire solar system. This created the “Chaotic Terrain” at the antipodes of this impact. Seismic waves from the impact converged on the opposite side of the planet, like sunrays running thrugh glass ball. MAYBE during such a massive impact the seismic waves are running thru the planet multiple times back and forth. The same antipodal “thing” mustve happened on Mars from the impact which created “Hellas Platitia”. What do we find quite close to the antipodes? -correct, some volcanoes and even the largest known Volcano of the solar system: “Olympus Mons”! The crust was weakened there so the volcanoes in that region could be formed easily.
20:26 – Here we see the first inklings of life on Mercury, having gone through billions of years of adaptation to make it past the single cell stage the first Mercurial insect pokes its head out of the safe shadow of the crater from which it has spawned, when-, KABOOM!!! Back at ground control for Messenger on Earth, NASA scientist celebrate a successful mission, knowing that no life would be harmed by ramming their spent space probe into the surface of an alien world…
Thea is really Mercury The mantle and crust of mercury makes up the inner moon + earth fragments formed the outer layer for the most part and formed the moon. Where is Mercurys crust & mantle ? + I study orbital mechanics and my experiments show that the most likely interplanetary collision in the future with The earth is not Venus or Mars. It is Mercury
I really like your analyses of things that few people are prepared to cover, which is a pity, but we are lucky to have you doing it. Thank you. However, there is one thing I think you might do some more study about. Specially since your subject is science. It’s the Si Metric system. You make errors regularly and repeatedly about the pronunciation and abbreviation of metric terms. For example, the kilometre or kilometer. The abbreviation for SI terms to the left of the decimal point are (capital letter)(unit). m means metre. It’s modified to the right of the decimal point by a lower case letter. For example milli (m) deci (d) centi (c) and modified to the left of the decimal point by a capital letter. For example Mega (M), Giga (G), Kilo (K). So a kilometre should be abbreviated as Km not km I know, I know, I know. Pedantic. But you’re making articles where precision in language is important. There’s a similar issue with your pronunciation of the word Kilometre. The word is pronounced KILO-metre not kil-O-metre. You should put emphasis in the same way as millimetre, centimetre, nanometer Not as speedometer the way you do You wouldn’t say kil-O-ton you’d say Kilo-ton You wouldn’t say Kil-O-gram you’d say Kilo-gram. Similarly you should say Kilo-metre
Hey folks, guess what? I’m hoping some of you noticed the earthspot in California reacting to the low pressure area moving in across the Baja peninsula? Was hoping been would notice. Then again Bens report was earlier. Perhaps he’s just finding out. At any rate watch those hurricanes cross close to land masses. The earth and the atmosphere electrical circuit does connect from time to time. What do ya get? A large earthquake
Were we to ever achieve the capability to do so, would Venus stabilize if we were to move Mercury into a Luna-like orbit? It would require stripping a fair amount of Mercury’s surface to achieve a heft in line with that of our lovely Moon. The mined material could be used for a great many things, but the best and first project should be to create solar shields for both Venus and Earth. Thoughts?
I do have one more theory to present about Mercury’s magnetic field. Perhaps, it has a high enough magnetic permeability, that it is merely concentrating the magnetic field coming from the sun. I do believe, that the orbit of Mercury is within the outer reaches of the magnetosphere of the sun. With mercury being largely metallic, I have no doubt, that it consists of highly ferrimagnetic materials like Iron, Nickel, Cobalt, perhaps some Neodymium, Dysprosium, or even Gallium. Any combination of these elements could “amplify” the magnetic field from the sun.
43:26 “It turns out this was the entire key …” No. No, do not commit a very basic logical fallacy… Proving one thing does not disprove other things, unless the detail proven precludes or explicitly excludes other possible things. Assuming that any perceived opposite of a true thing must be false is a recipe for missing very important lessons in life. Very, very few things are boolean in reality. In respect to this issue, I am absolutely certain the shape and composition of all things involved also matters, not just the surface texture. It is absolutely absurd to think that at energy levels too low to break atomic bonds that the physical presence of matter… doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s the exact same reason this phenomenon happens in the first place. As to the composition, sure, the vast majority of the energy will be above chemical and molecular bonds, and thusly result in the devastating, rock-crushing explosion-like result, though some won’t be, and some materials are insanely strong or shockingly weak, to boot. As anyone that has even attempted to learn quantum physics can attest to: The real world doesn’t care about what’s most likely to happen or what are the most significant contributing factors. Reality will factor in every detail no matter how small.
Superb amazing wonderful fascinating interesting beautiful and unbelievable very nice and pleasant excellent dazzling article. For a common people like me it gives great pleasure to watch articles as we are ignorant of the solar system. Your article gives me interesting facts about solar system. Thank you so much for your valuable article. Wishing you best regards for your next upcoming article.
I saw a YouTube article from someone claiming that 1) Mercury’s position is crucial to not just the orbits of the terrestrial planets but also to Jupiter. We care because 2) Mercury has an eccentric orbit which is not as strongly anchored as the orbits of the other terrestrial planets and which could fly off (?) then 3) if Mercury moves then Jupiter starts heading into the terrestrial orbit zone due to its immense gravitational attraction to the sun. ……. So is any of this accurate or is this National Enquirer science?
Nice but so limited. It would be a pain to see mankind venturing out in order to measure, weigh, explain, etc. the universe without ever looking at itself, the fact that it is consciousness, the abilities of consciousness and the origin of consciousness. If I would be an alien and humans come along I would say to my fellow aliens “take care, the blind are coming”.
Mercury is a remnant of a planet that never managed to fully develop due to it’s proximity to the sun and its gravitational pull and it’s high powered solar winds ‘blowing’ off the materials that it needed to fully evolve into a larger planet. The ‘planet’ is more a core than an actual planet at this point. But, that’s just my theory, anyways. Hopefully this new mission will provide more answers, as to what happened to Mercury during the formation of our solar system.
WTF : I just realized, doesn’t make any sense that the earth is denser than planets closer to the sun, but since a few years we know a dwarf planet or something alike hit the earth billions of years ago and created the moon (at the same time that it created the big chunk of metal at the center of the earth that makes it have a magnetosphere), what if the impacter was a planet like even more metallic than mercury which rose earth density to the one we know ???