Mercury Landers |
Mercury Landers |
Aug 15 2005, 03:36 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
While the likelyhood of a Mercury Lander mission is very low, I was wondering if any planning/studies have been done on such a project?
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
Aug 17 2005, 12:29 PM
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#2
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Guests |
What is astonishing with Mercury is that it closely ressembles the Moon, but it does not seems to have volcanic activity, despites the fact that Mercury is much larger than the Moon. The Moon hade huge lava flows about 3-3.2 Gyears ago, forming the "seas". But as fas as I know there are no traces of lava or volcanoes. A popular hypothesis about these lava flow is that they were produced by the cooling and closing of the inner liquid core. But I think the hypothesis of a tidal heating would be interesting too, while explaining why Mercury had not such a volcanic episode.
Another difference (perhaps explaining the lack of volcanoes) is the huge iron core. There is also the network of NE-SW and WN-ES fractures running all around it. A popular hypothesis is that these fractures are due to the shrinking of the iron core when it cooled, perhaps at the occasion of the large impact of Mare Caloris. |
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