Scientists reveal that this planet in our solar system has been shrinking and wrinkling for millions of years
A new study has shown that the closest planet to the Sun has been getting smaller and smaller over time.
Since its fiery birth nearly 4.5 billion years ago, Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system, has been slowly shrinking. According to a study published in AGU Advances, as its hot core gradually cooled, the planet began to contract, and its surface started developing pronounced wrinkles in the form of cliffs and ridges.
The first clues came in the 1970s when NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft revealed dramatic scarps on Mercury’s surface. These steep slopes were later identified as thrust faults, where one block of crust is shoved over another.
Planetary scientist David Rothery from the Open University explained: “Because Mercury’s interior is shrinking, its surface has progressively less area to cover. It responds to this by developing thrust faults—where one tract of terrain gets pushed over the adjacent terrain."
Estimating just how much Mercury has shrunk has been challenging: earlier studies proposed a wide range, from less than one kilometre, up to as much as seven.
That’s where a clever new approach steps in: Researchers Thomas R. Watters, Alex Klimczak, and Christopher R. Loveless looked at the largest fault in a given dataset, calculated how much contraction it represented, then extrapolated to estimate the planet’s overall shrinkage.
They applied this technique to three datasets ranging from just 100 to nearly 6,000 faults, and consistently arrived at a shrinkage estimate of about 2.3 to 3.5 km in radius. After factoring in additional cooling processes, the revised estimate extends to 2.7 to 5.6 km.
Orbital Today writes that “this shrinking process might continue even in the years to come, so it is essential to keep track of the planet’s shrinkage.”
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