The First Real Images Of Mercury - What We Found?

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun which on the face of it seems inanimate and completely uninteresting however despite its enormous temperature there's water at its poles moreover the surface of mercury surprises all astronomical scientists they're the rarest types of impact craters and even forms of relief unknown to modern science finally although Mercury is very small it has enough of a magnetosphere to protect its surface from Supernova and even a minor atmosphere that should have been weathered by now today we'll tell you about the mysterious Mercury as well as the secrets of the surface of this small planet [Music] mercury has a radius of 1516 miles and is on average only 36 million miles from the Sun or about two and a half times closer than Earth therefore one year on the planet takes 88 days the planet's temperature reaches 800 degrees Fahrenheit but because of its very thin atmosphere it can drop to negative 290 degrees Fahrenheit at night by the way Mercury rotates very slowly around its axis one day on Earth would be 59 days on Mercury that is the day and night on the planet lasts for three months what causes such a slow rotation Mercury is not blocked by the tides of the Sun as has been assumed for a very long time it is in spin orbit resonance with the star in a three to two ratio it rotates around its axis three times in two revolutions around the Sun it's thought that mercury may have previously been in one-to-one resonance but something probably collision with a giant object caused the spin rate to change as hinted by its many craters including the impact Basin of caloris on the other hand according to research a group of scientists led by Benoit Noel's have concluded that mercury may have been in such resonance almost from the beginning of its formation another important factor influencing the rotation and temperature of Mercury is its eccentric orbit the planet's orbit is elongated and resembles an egg so depending on its position Mercury's distance from the Sun can range from 29 million miles to 43 million miles Mercury's orbit has another peculiarity that was discovered only recently the orbit holds a Dusty ring of the planet scientists believe that mercury was too small and close to the Sun to have a ring moreover scientists were going to investigate the planet's orbit to find an area around the Sun that had no dust but found a dust ring instead the ring is very thin and nine million miles wide the source of the Ring could be meteoroids and the dust cluster in the same orbit as mercury a group of scientists led by Dr Peter pokorny believes that such a phenomenon may not be unique but common in other exoplanet systems where different space objects constantly crash into planets without a significant atmosphere interestingly despite its small size mercury has a magnetic field although its magnetic field is the smallest in the entire solar system and has only one percent of the strength of Earth it's still capable of reflecting Stellar winds off the surface forming a magnetosphere nevertheless the magnetosphere is probably leaky that is it has holes through which sunlight can penetrate as it flew past Mercury the messenger Space Telescope noticed magnetic tornadoes on the surface beams of magnetic fields connected to the interplanetary space filled with rarified gas and magnetic fields carried by the solar wind these openings in the planet's magnetosphere allow us to replenish the barely detectable atmosphere but we know that the magnetic field is formed by the movement of electric current in the liquid metal in the planet's core does Mercury have a core large enough to generate a magnetic field in fact Mercury's core is even one-third of the planet's total mass the core has a radius of as much as 1289 miles which is only half the size of Earth's with the enormous size of Mercury's core University of Maryland geology Professor William McDonough explains the initial formation processes of the Sun when the newborn son was surrounded by a proto-planetary disk most of the form metal stayed closer to it since metal is heavy it's difficult to eject it far away with gas so the large concentration of metal near the Sun during the early stages of planetary birth could have built up Mercury's core to such a large size however there are still likely reasons for the high proportion of metal compared to silicates and Mercury scientists speculate that mercury probably could have been much larger than it is now however several hypothetical cataclysms could have prevented its mass buildup one such cataclysm could have been the influence of the forming of Earth and Venus both planets could have formed closer to the Sun then migrated to their current orbits and taken the building material that was destined for mercury on the other hand Mercury's composition could be the result of an impact on the two planets or the impact of a huge space object causing it to lose about a third of its mantle a collision with such massive bodies could have thrown Mercury which was further from the Sun into its current unfavorable orbit impacts from other space objects the consequences in the form of craters which we see in the images could have continued to remove the silicate surface of the planet nevertheless all these assumptions are only hypothetical so we should expect further studies of new spacecraft such as the beppe Colombo mission of the European space agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency which will focus on the origin of Earth group planets still as much as we would like to learn more about Mercury it is in fact quite difficult to study up close from ground-based telescopes it is extremely difficult to track it at night at the best time to observe it because of its proximity to the Sun so it Also Rises only with a star the Sun's light can damage Optics If You observe Mercury for a long time during the day moreover the small planet is harder to reach even than the farthest planets in the solar system because of the star's gravitational pull and temperature therefore a spacecraft sent to explore Mercury must reach the planet very carefully which is long and risky and is almost always within acceptable temperature limits for operation that's why only two missions Mariner 10 and messenger were sent to Mercury without them we would hardly know everything we know about Mercury today Mariner 10 was the first mission to use the gravitational pull of another planet Venus to reach a planet for its Maneuvers the spacecraft used the pressure of solar radiation on its two solar panels using its abundant instrumentation Mariner 10 was able to confirm a Moonlight crater covered surface as well as detect the magnetosphere and rarified atmosphere of Mercury moreover it was Mariner 10 that discovered the planet's large core in addition to measuring its temperature on both sides the spacecraft was able to take more than 2 700 images of Mercury allowing scientists to create a map of nearly half of the planet's surface from those images in all the last Mariner made three passes over the inner planet six months apart it did not orbit Mercury but it still managed to make a breakthrough in the study of the planet the ship's Mission lasted about a year after orbiting the Sun in late March 1975 Mariner 10 stopped transmitting radio signals to Earth it may still be orbiting the Sun the Mariner spacecraft messenger continued its work 30 years later in 2004. unlike its predecessor messenger not only flew over Mercury but was also the first spacecraft to orbit the planet which yielded more in-depth and interesting data the main goals of messenger were to collect information on the chemical composition of the planet and its exosphere to study the magnetic field and its sources and to study geological activity in Mercury's past and the state of its core at the moment before entering Mercury's orbit messenger made three orbits around it slowing the craft down from the start of the flight as of 2014 the vehicle was able to take two hundred thousand photos of Mercury it managed to take a total of 2 500 pitchers in early 2015 messenger began to run out of fuel at the end of April 2015 messenger finally stalled and crashed into Mercury forming a new crater on its surface all in all the messenger Mission lasted about 10 years during this period of time it managed to make many interesting and unexpected discoveries the most outstanding can be considered a complete map of Mercury messenger captured all the craters and basins that were on the planet's surface so scientists were able to study its geology and depth moreover the spacecraft was able to determine the chemical composition of Mercury thus its surface contains 46 percent oxygen 12 percent magnesium 26 percent silicon seven percent aluminum and four percent calcium the ship also indicated to scientists that the planet contains a large amount of sulfur with much less iron this as well as direct photos of gentle volcanoes suggested that mercury may have previously been volcanically active and even completely covered by a magmatic ocean when the planet cools after such geologic activity heavy elements like iron sink downward which explains the small amount at the top the magma ocean phase filled the atmosphere with volatile substances including sulfur sodium and chlorine which evaporate only when exposed to high temperatures the scientists suggested the magma also melted the planet's interior and probably the upper but this was not enough to significantly reduce Mercury's Mass now the planet is no longer active in addition as the planet cooled it began to shrink forming cracks and ridges along its surface in addition to traces of lava eruptions messenger also found water deposits at Mercury's poles water exists there in the form of ice despite the high surface temperature the poles of the planet are not heated by the direct rays of the Sun so the water there always remains Frozen moreover it suggests that there may be liquid water inside Mercury under the ash deposit although this cannot yet be confirmed messenger also made an unexpected Discovery concerning the planet's magnetic field it turns out it shifted along its axis by 20 percent of Mercury's radius such an anomaly could affect the planet's surface for example solar particles would have greater intensity in the South weathering elements from the surface finally messenger took a 2011 photo from the planet's orbit of the entire solar system except for dim Uranus and Neptune the previous image was taken back in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft still the most interesting discovery of both spaceships was the surface of Mercury so let's take a closer look Mercury surface has an interesting topography although it's almost entirely covered in craters it also has almost completely smooth areas as well as ridges and troughs it's difficult to name the exact number of craters but at this point we know for sure about 567 of the planet's craters which are also named after prominent people most of them are impact craters that is damage caused by an impact with a small Cosmic body such craters are divided into simple and complex by morphology such as geological differences like Peaks Terraces several rings on the surface of mercury simple craters predominate especially in the South they typically reach sizes of 0.6 to 9 miles or depths of less than seven miles or complex craters are slightly less common they are larger than simple ones ranging from 10 to 168 miles long and more than seven miles deep however mercury has the most such topographic lesions than any other object in the solar system thus on the surface of the planet there are 110 craters with a peak in the middle when for example on the moon there's only 17 such craters besides on average small impact craters there's another type of these craters as impact bases they can be as large as 200 miles or even as large as 963 miles the rather large numbers on the surface can be explained by the increasing velocity of bodies in solar orbit and a negligible atmosphere some of the most famous basins are the colorus and Rembrandt basins colorus is Mercury's largest crater measuring 963 miles in diameter in the full image scientists find that it was previously filled with lava so you can now see the smooth planes at the bottom of the crater it is suggested that the object that crashed into the planet and formed colorus may have also created the chaotic terrain of mercury an area modeled with furrows and planes further Rembrandt the second largest crater is about half the size of caloris it was also probably covered by lava in earlier stages which is why the area around it is smooth in addition to these basins mercury has several other interesting craters for example the Basin thick is the oldest crater on Mercury it may be over 4 billion years old it also has the darkest place on the entire planet covered in particles ejected by a volcano there are also special rare types of craters on Mercury these include elliptical polygonal and ghost craters all of these types have different mechanisms of formation for example an elliptical crater is formed because of the low velocity and large volume of the space body such craters are about two to four percent of the entire surface the largest elliptical crater is sven's daughter 137 miles long polygonal that is craters with several angles probably arise because of the structure of the planetary crust and its dilapidation there's about 33 of these on Mercury craters ghosts are barely visible because their bottoms are filled with lava deposits but they are distinguished by ridges along the edges which have Arisen from the rapid accumulation of lava flows the last interesting type of crater which can also be clearly seen on the moon is a ray crater their main feature is the long raised diverging from the crater and having a huge length for example the longest lines on Mercury have the crater Hokusai 2 800 miles these marks appear because the impact triggers the ejection of subsurface elements that fade over time so the brighter the line the younger the crater thanks to all these craters scientists can study the Dynamics of the planet's geological activity and among other things its age thus young craters are convex with Terraces on the walls while older craters are very shallow because they're probably filled with volcanic material still for example while studying crater types and sizes NASA researcher Caleb fassett noticed that mercury was missing craters from 12 to 80 miles he suggested this may be due to the frequent formation of inner crater planes early in the planet's history high surface structures like ridges and escarpments are not too numerous on Mercury only about a hundred all the Uplands were formed in different periods and under the influence of different mechanisms for example smooth Ledges were formed during volcanic activity and ridges and wrinkles were formed during the cooling and compression of the planet on average they all reach a height of 0.07 to 0.5 miles some high mountain ranges which incidentally do not exist on Earth on Mercury can reach up to 360 kilometers in length like Anton Yani dorsum nevertheless despite the study of mercury surface the history of global compression is still unknown another 27 percent of the planet's entire surface is occupied by almost perfectly smooth planes with few craters such planes are found at all latitudes as well as around large basins two-thirds of them are formed due to volcanic activity and the rest is probably due to volcanic particle emissions by the caloris basin the last geological Oddity of mercury which is not observed anywhere else is its Hollows they were noticed by Mariner tin but messenger made clearer images so it is awarded the first discovery they are shallow depressions without edges and with flat bottoms that occupy about 0.08 percent of the planet in most cases they are inside impact craters scientists speculate that they are much younger than Mercury and are formed by the loss of volatiles from the surface the process of hollow formation has not stopped so the surface of the planet may change over time so scientists believe that 99 of mercury surface could be completely transformed in 25 million years Mercury is a very valuable planet to study the Dynamics of surface changes as well as the mechanisms of the formation of different landforms therefore in 2018 a new spacecraft was sent to observe the first planet of the solar system which will continue the mission of the previous two Pepe Colombo it consists of two separate spacecraft that will observe Mercury from far and near at the same time primary mission to answer the questions that messenger has raised that is Betty Colombo will investigate in more detail the origin and causes of magnetic field displacement water deposits at the poles cavities and the mechanisms of their formation in 2025 beppy Colombo should enter Mercury's orbit and begin its main work hopefully this new study will be able to solve most of the mysteries of this planet which will have good implications for our understanding of the history of the solar system

Channel: Space Matters

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Keywords: Mercury, what mercury conceals, what was discovered on mercury, what is hidden in craters on mercury, planet, solar system, surface of mercury, crater, volcanoes on mercury, mariner 10, messenger, mercury's orbit, exploring mercury, science, pantheon fossae, enterprise rupes, space, cosmos, popular science, ancient mercury, video about space, planet geography, probes, craters, space matters, planet mercury, mercury planet

Id: X4sZd41ZRaQ

Length: 21min 28sec (1288 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2023