Mercury, Our solar system’s innermost planet is shrinking. As its core cooled, this celestial body experienced small-volume contraction, resulting in the formation of “thrust faults.”
In 1974, the Mariner 10 mission discovered that Mercury was shrinking and leaving scars on the ground. Years later, the MESSENGER space probe, which orbited the planet between 2011 and 2015, revealed new images of “lobed slopes” along the entire length of Mercury’s surface.
Mercury’s contraction resulted in a reduction in its radius of approximately 7 km. The consensus among researchers is this: Most of these rocks are about 3 billion years old.
In a recent expedition, Open University PhD student Ben Man noticed small cracks in the rocks. These features are known as “grabens” and are a sign of tension in the ground between two faults. Calculations show that most grabens are less than 300 million years old; This means a movement that has occurred recently..
Messenger data revealed 48 large lobate scars with definitive grabens. The other 244 have “possible” grabens. The BepiColombo project, planned to enter Mercury orbit in 2026, aims to confirm these findings..
Our own moon has some similarities with Mercury. It also cooled and narrowed over time. Although less dramatic than those on Mercury, the Moon’s lobe protrusions have been shown to be geologically recent and active. Apollo seismographs Earthquakes detected near these cliffs.
Additionally, orbital images also showed traces of rocks displaced by these earthquakes. Just like Mercury’s grabens, These tracks indicate recent seismic activity.
BepiColombo will not land on Mercury’s surface, but will only study the orbit, so the seismic data will remain undefined. But the expectation is that the images will show evidence of recent earthquakes and shed more light on the mystery of Mercury’s contraction.
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Source: Tec Mundo
I’m Blaine Morgan, an experienced journalist and writer with over 8 years of experience in the tech industry. My expertise lies in writing about technology news and trends, covering everything from cutting-edge gadgets to emerging software developments. I’ve written for several leading publications including Gadget Onus where I am an author.
