| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Science & Technology | |
| Mercury: The planet that shouldn't exist | |
| 2026-01-02 | |
At a cursory glance, Mercury might well be the Solar System's dullest planet. Its barren surface has few notable features, there is no evidence of water in its past and the planet's wispy atmosphere is tenuous at best. The likelihood of life being found amidst its scotched craters is non-existent. Yet, look closer and Mercury is a fascinating, improbable world that is shrouded in mystery. Planetary scientists remain flummoxed by the very existence of the closest planet to our Sun. This peculiar planet is tiny, 20 times less massive than Earth and barely wider than Australia. Yet Mercury is the second densest planet in our Solar System after Earth due to a large, metallic core that accounts for the majority of its mass. Mercury's orbit – hugging close to our Sun – is also in a weird location that astronomers can't quite explain. All this ties together into one crucial point – we have no idea how Mercury formed. As far as we can tell, the planet simply shouldn't exist. "It's kind of embarrassing," says Sean Raymond, an expert in planetary formation and dynamics at the University of Bordeaux in France. "There's some key subtlety that we're missing." The mystery of where Mercury came from, how it formed and why it looks like it does today is one of the grandest mysteries in the Solar System. Some answers, however, might be on the horizon. A joint European and Japanese mission called BepiColombo launched in 2018 and is currently on its way to Mercury. The probe will be our first visitor to the planet in more than a decade. When it enters orbit in November 2026, after a thruster problem delayed its journey, one of its key goals is to try and work exactly where Mercury came from. | |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2026-01-02 09:01 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2026-01-02 01:18 |