It’s small, it’s hot, and it’s shrinking. New NASA-funded research suggests that Mercury is contracting even today, joining Earth as a tectonically active planet.
Images obtained by NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft reveal previously undetected small fault scarps— cliff-like landforms that resemble stair steps. These scarps are small enough that scientists believe they must be geologically young, which means Mercury is still contracting and that Earth is not the only tectonically active planet in our solar system, as previously thought.
Managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, MESSENGER launched Aug. 3, 2004 and began orbiting Mercury March 18, 2011. The mission ended with a planned impact on the surface of Mercury on April 30, 2015.
Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington/USGS/Arizona State University
Last Updated: Sept. 26, 2016
Editor: Sarah Loff
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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