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Planet Mercury Has Shrunk More Than Thought
sciencehabit writes "Measuring just 4880 kilometers across, Mercury is a small world. The planet became slightly smaller as its interior cooled, which caused Mercury to shrink, buckling its surface and creating numerous cliffs and ridges. Now, after studying 5934 of these features, researchers report online today in Nature Geoscience that Mercury's contraction was much greater than previously thought: During the past 4 billion years, the planet's diameter decreased by 7 to 14 kilometers. The greater estimate of shrinkage accords with models that predict how much a rocky planet should contract as its interior cools; the new work may also lend insight into the evolution of extrasolar planets that, like Mercury and unlike Earth, lack any moving continents."
Easy mistake to make.
I'm surprised to hear it has "cooled" with it's greatest distance from the Sun being a mere 69,816,900 km.
The dark side of Mercury is a balmy -280F. Hard to retain any meaningful amount of heat when you have no atmosphere. :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Mercury's diameter is 2.11 times that of 134340 Pluto, but its mass is 25.3 that of the puny dwarf planet.
Discounting metallic hydrogen on Jupiter and Saturn, Mercury's definately the most Metal planet in the solar system.