Mystery Rising Within Mercury

astroengine writes "Something besides volcanic eruptions and asteroid and comet impacts has sculpted the surface of Mercury — an unknown process, possibly still going on today, that causes the ground to swell from the inside out. The evidence, collected by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft currently orbiting the innermost planet, is scattered all over Mercury, including a dramatic finding that half of the floor of the biggest crater on the planet has been raised above the walls. The MESSENGER team's findings were announced at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston on Wednesday and will be published in this week's Science."

Comments

Mystery Rising Within Mercury?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it has come to this.

Re:Mystery Rising Within Mercury?

[The Snowman]

So it has come to this.

Nah, it's just the Slashdot effect...

No, XKCD.

space worm/moth metamorphasis

[ThorGod]

I predict the billion year "planet" phase of the great space moth is nearing completion. In another million years, the beautiful space moth will spread its wings and fly away.

It's the Mycon

[MichaelusWF]

This is a special place, filled with Juffo-Wup. But it is not the source

What about this is unusual?

[snookums]

I didn't see any mention in the linked article about what makes these features particularly odd. It says parts of the crust are tilted and raised by several kilometers in places. This is pretty commonplace geology caused by plate tectonics here on Earth (we call them mountain ranges). If Mercury has a liquid mantle, would we not expect to see similar folding and up-thrusting there? Is this different because of the size, shape, speed of movement?

Re:What about this is unusual?

[stuckinarut]

Perhaps try the BBC article: Mercury has been 'dynamic world'

"Many scientists believed that Mercury was much like the Moon - that it cooled off very early in Solar System history, and has been a dead planet throughout most of its evolution," said Maria Zuber, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"Now, we're finding compelling evidence for unusual dynamics within the planet, indicating that Mercury was apparently active for a long time."

Dr Zuber and her colleagues used laser measurements from Messenger to map out a large number of impact craters, and found that many had tilted over time. This suggests that geological processes within the planet have re-shaped Mercury's terrain after the craters were created.

A process called polar wander can cause geological features to shift around on a planet's surface.

In theory, the process of convection going on within the mantle could drive such changes. But Dr Zuber said this would be unusual in Mercury's case, because the mantle is so thin.

Another potential explanation could be that features on the surface were distorted as the planet's interior cooled and contracted. This fits in with observations that some surface features on Mercury have been exposed to high levels of stress.

Why so much core?

[MichaelSmith]

Makes me wonder if Mercury was once the core of a much larger planet, and rhe mantle got knocked off in an impact.

Re:just guessing

[Dragon Bait]

No,no. I'll give him computer scientist. Considering how utterly craptastic software has been, There is very little expectation for computer scientists to actually do anything right.

Computer Science is the only profession next to Meteorology where you can be wrong most of the time and keep your job.

I don't know. Most senators are re-elected for life.