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Recent Surface Changes on Mercury?

Close-up images from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft reveal bright shallow depressions called 'hollows' within impact craters on Mercury. These features are thought to have formed recently and their formation process remains a mystery. The presence of volatile elements on Mercury challenges previous ideas about the planet's formation.

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Recent Surface Changes on Mercury?

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  1. Recent Surface Changes on Mercury? • Due to its small size, Mercury was thought to be geologically ‘dead’ today, except for ongoing impact cratering • Close-up images from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft show that some impact craters contain bright shallow depressions, which scientists have named ‘hollows’ • The hollows must have formed recently, since they have accumulated few impacts • Such features have never been seen elsewhere, and the process responsible for their formation remains a mystery MESSENGER enhanced-color image of a portion of the Raditladi impact basinon Mercury. The bright, bluish areas are composed of irregular pit-like depressions (hollows). The pits may be actively forming today.

  2. A More “Volatile” World Than Expected • The hollows are found mostly within impact craters, in rocks likely brought up to the surface by an impact event • Scientists think that these rocks contain abundant volatile elements (material that vaporizes easily). MESSENGER has measured more volatile elements on Mercury than the Moon. • High surface temperatures and intense bombardment by the solar wind and micrometeoroids may slowly allow the volatiles to escape the rocks as gas, leading to collapse of the remaining rock Small hollows on the Sun-facing wall of a 15-km diameter crater. Exposure to the harsh space environment at Mercury is probably responsible for formation of the hollows.

  3. The Big Picture • Mercury was expected to form with few volatile elements because the high temperatures close to the Sun should have kept them gaseous, preventing them from being incorporated in the solid material that formed the planet • But this and other MESSENGER results indicate that Mercury has a surprisingly large abundance of volatiles. How did they get there? • These findings suggest that our ideas about the formation of the planets and the early Solar System need to be revised Painting by William K. Hartmann depicting the early Sun and formation of the planets. MESSENGER results imply that materials originating at different distances from the Sun were mixed extensively to form the planets.

  4. For more information… Prepared for the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society by David Blewett, D. Brain, N. Schneider dpsdisc@aas.org - http://dps.aas.org/education/dpsdisc/ - Released November 15, 2012 • Press • New Scientist – Sept. 29, 2011 - “Bright 'hollows' on Mercury are unique in solar system” • http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20985-bright-hollows-on-mercury-are-unique-to-solar-system.html • BBC News – Sept. 30, 2011 – “’Hollows’ mark Mercury’s surface” • http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15113388 • Images • Slide 1 image courtesy NASA / APL / Carnegie Institute • http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14856 • Slide 2 image from the source article • Slide 3 image courtesy William K. Hartmann • http://www.psi.edu/~hartmann/catalog/catalog1.html • Source Articles(on-campus login may be required to access journals) • D.T. Blewett et al., 'Hollows on Mercury: MESSENGER Evidence for Geologically Recent Volatile-Related Activity', Science, 333 (no. 6051), p. 1856-1859, DOI: 10.1126/science.1211681, 2011. • http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6051/1856.full?sid=283c8d6d-fb4e-4ae5-8004-39ec247764e9

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