Mercury Archives

July 27, 2024July 27, 2024 by Matt Williams

Mercury Could be Housing a Megafortune Worth of Diamonds!

Image of Mercury taken by NASA's MESSENGER mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/ASU/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Mercury, the closest planet to our Sun, is also one of the least understood in the Solar System. On the one hand, it is similar in composition to Earth and the other rocky planets, consisting of silicate minerals and metals differentiated between a silicate crust and mantle and an iron-nickel core. But unlike the other rocky planets, Mercury’s core makes up a much larger part of its mass fraction. Mercury also has a mysteriously persistent magnetic field that scientists still cannot explain. In this respect, Mercury is also one of the most interesting planets in the Solar System.

But according to new research, Mercury could be much more interesting than previously thought. Based on new simulations of Mercury’s early evolution, a team of Chinese and Belgian geoscientists found evidence that Mercury may have a layer of solid diamond beneath its crust. According to their simulations, this layer is 15 km (9 mi) thick sandwiched between the core and the mantle hundreds of miles beneath the surface. While this makes the diamonds inaccessible (for now, at least), these findings could have implications for theories about the formation and evolution of rocky planets.

July 4, 2024July 4, 2024 by David Dickinson

Meeting Mercury at Dusk in July

Mercury puts on one of its best apparitions for 2024 this month.

Where have all of the planets gone? The late evening fall of dusk in early July also sees a sky seemingly vacant of familiar naked eye planets. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are now denizens of dawn, and will stay that way for most of the remainder of 2024.

But two challenging planets are now emerging low to the west at dusk: Mercury and Venus. The two interior worlds are now mounting a slow return, as the hunt is now on the recover the two after sunset.

March 27, 2024March 27, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Mercury is the Perfect Destination for a Solar Sail

Illustration of Mercury Scout illuminating a crater

Solar sails rely upon pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. Get the sail closer to the Sun and not surprisingly efficiency increases. A proposed new mission called Mercury Scout aims to take advantage of this to explore Mercury. The mission will map the Mercurian surface down to a resolution of 1 meter and, using the highly reflective sail surface to illuminate shadowed craters, could hunt for water deposits.

March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 by Evan Gough

Perseverance Sees Phobos, Deimos and Mercury Passing in Front of the Sun

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to capture the silhouette of Phobos, the larger of Mars' pair of moons, as it passed in front of the Sun on Feb. 8, 2024, the 1,056th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI

NASA’s Perseverance rover is busy exploring the Martian surface and collecting samples for eventual return to Earth. But the rover recently took some time to gaze upward and observe the heavens. Using Mastcam-Z, the rover’s primary science camera, Perseverance captured Phobos, Deimos, and Mercury as they transited in front of the Sun.

January 3, 2024January 3, 2024 by Scott Alan Johnston

Iron Snow Could Explain the Magnetic Fields at Worlds Like Ganymede

Iron snow in the core of Ganymede. Credits: Image by Ludovic Huguet and map texture from NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, features a surprisingly strong magnetic field for its size. Tidal effects from Jupiter continually stretch and squeeze the moon, keeping its core warm and driving the magnetic field. But the exact geological processes occurring within the core are not fully understood. Now, a new experimental study has put one of the leading models of core dynamics to the test: the formation of crystalized ‘iron snow’.

November 23, 2023November 23, 2023 by Mark Thompson

There Were Glaciers… on Mercury?

A view of Mercury’s north polar chaotic terrain (Borealis Chaos) and the Raditladi and Eminescu craters where evidence of possible glaciers has been identified. Red areas identified regions of potential salt glaciers — A view of Mercury’s north polar chaotic terrain (Borealis Chaos) and the Raditladi and Eminescu craters where evidence of possible glaciers has been identified (Credit: NASA)

I have lost count of how many times I have given public lectures and explained the temperature differences between Mercury and Venus. How Mercury, surprisingly isn’t the hottest planet in the Solar System and how that badge goes to Venus, thick atmosphere blah blah blah. Mercury and its complex surface geology does of course get a good chunk of time but a recent paper has rather caught my attention and turned what I thought I knew about Mercury on its head! In short, a team of scientists have announced evidence for salt glaciers on Mercury!

October 14, 2023October 14, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Mercury is Still Shrinking

Mercury is considered a scorching, barren landscape that would literally melt your face off if you were standing on it in full sunlight. But scientists have also known for a long time that it was shrinking…because it was cold. New research based on distinct features in Mercury’s geography suggests that it might continue to do so even today.

September 20, 2023September 20, 2023 by Evan Gough

This Exoplanet is Probably a Solid Ball of Metal

An illustration of the exoplanet Gliese 367 b. It's an oddball planet that may be composed entirely of iron. Image Credit: NASA

We can’t understand nature without understanding its range. That’s apparent in exoplanet science and in our theories of planetary formation. Nature’s outliers and oddballs put pressure on our models and motivate scientists to dig deeper.

June 22, 2023June 22, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

BepiColumbo Makes its Third Flyby of Mercury, Seeing the Planet's Night Side

Several geological features are visible in this image of Mercury taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on June 19, 2023 as the spacecraft sped by for its third of three gravity assist maneuvers at the planet. Credit: ESA/BepiColumbo/MTM.

ESA’s BepiColumbo continues its journey to Mercury by making another flyby … of Mercury! This is the third of six planned flybys of its destination planet, each of which gives the spacecraft a gravitational deceleration. Eventually, it’ll slow down enough to go into its final operational orbit.

In the most recent flyby on June 19, 2023, the spacecraft sped past the planet’s night side and took a series of images from 236 km (145 miles) above Mercury’s surface. From these 217 images, the BepiColumbo team created a movie of the flyby, which includes a 3D scene.

March 3, 2023March 3, 2023 by David Dickinson

ESA’s Solar Orbiter Spies a Transit of Mercury

Solar Orbiter’s unique vantage point recently allowed researchers to make a crucial observation of the solar system’s innermost world.

You never know when a chance for some extra space science will present itself. Recently, European Space Agency (ESA) mission controllers had just such a chance, when the planet Mercury passed in front of our host star as seen from the Solar Orbiter’s point of view in space.