Monday, September 24, 2012

Mercury's Composition

Data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft orbiting Mercury shows a world unlike the other terrestrial planets.  Given Mercury's position so close to the Sun, that's not surprising, but the composition of the surface is.

The surface turns out to be similar to a particular class of chondrite meteorite.  That suggests the meteorites and Mercury were formed in the same process, if not at the same time.  Data also suggests lava flowed across Mercury, sculpting the surface we see, in two huge volcanic events, clearly separated in time.

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