Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Little Mercury May Be Shrinking Faster Than Scientists Expected

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/09/11/2...

A new study suggests Mercury may have shrunk about 30% more than scientists
previously thought, losing as much as 14 miles in diameter as its interior
cooled and contracted over billions of years. "That's significant for a
planet barely 3,000 miles (4,900 kilometers) across," reports the Associated
Press. From the report: 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. The news comes one week after a pair of
European and Japanese spacecraft shed its cruising platform and advanced
toward Mercury. Known as BepiColombo, the linked craft are expected to enter
orbit around Mercury in November before splitting up for a fuller survey.
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. The shrinkage could be even more
than his team is estimating based on measurements from NASA's Messenger
spacecraft in the 2010s. Only one other spacecraft has ever visited Mercury,
NASA's Mariner 10 in the 1970s.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528