Mercury is an unusual clump of rock with a distinct configuration to its neighboring rocky planets.
“It’s way too dense,” told David Rothery. He is a planetary scientist at the Open University in England.
Most of the planet nearest to the sun is used by its core, and it lacks a heavy mantle like Earth has, and no one is entirely sure why. One likelihood is that the planet used to stand much bigger, which was possibly twice its existing bulk or more. Billions of years ago, this fledgling proto Mercury, or super Mercury, could give birth to a large object, stripping away its external layers and leaving the sediment we see behind.
“We don’t have any samples of Mercury,” at the moment, announced Dr. Cartier. Gaining such samples “would be a small revolution” in comprehending the natural account of the solar system’s tiniest planet.
According to the Meteoritical Society, almost 70,000 meteorites have been huddled worldwide from areas as remote as the Sahara and Antarctica, discovering their way into museums and different collections. Most are from asteroids deported from the belt between Mars and Jupiter, while more than 500 show up from the moon, and more than 300 prevail from Mars.
“I think aubrites are the shallowest portions of the mantle of a large proto-Mercury,” Dr. Cartier declared. “This could resolve the origin of Mercury.”
If authentic, it would imply that we have had chunks of Mercury, albeit a much more ancient version of the planet hiding in drawers and display cases for more than 150 years.
