The Sun’s nearest planet, Mercury, seems odd in some ways; for instance, it has a proportionately larger metallic core than any other planet. That feature has led some to suggest that somehow most of any original silicate mantle was lost. One possibility is that its proximity to the Sun resulted in Mercury’s surface being ablated. Another looks to a huge collision with another body that tore off much of the mantle; similar to the event that the chemical commonality of the Earth and Moon suggests early in Earth history. Both processes should have left a distinct geochemical signature on the surface of Mercury: some kind of residue of solar ablation or evidence of fractional crystallisation of a magma ocean, such as the feldspar-rich lunar highlands that are probably formed of crystals that floated as such a planetary silicate melt cooled and evolved. The seeming strangeness of Mercury helped underpin a well-equipped un-crewed mission, going by the acronym MESSENGER, that finally settled into Mercury orbit in March 2011 after a planned ‘yo-yoing’ path since launch in August 2004 that took it back and forth between Earth, Mercury and Venus in its early stages. Early analysis of results from the now permanent orbit appeared in the 30 September 2011 issue of Science.
MESSENGER carries several remote sensing instruments: a stereo imaging device to map landforms, and topography; a laser altimeter to back the stereo imager; a visible to short-wave infrared spectrometer to map variations in surface spectra and minerals; gamma-ray spectrometry to map distributions of naturally radioactive isotopes and emissions from other elements triggered by high-energy cosmic ray bombardment; using the Sun as a source of gamma- and X-rays to cause a variety of elements to emit lower energy X-rays – a variant of X-ray fluorescence spectrometry that is a workhorse of lab geochemistry.
The earlier Mercury fly-bys and previous missions clearly showed that its surface is heavily cratered but possesses areas resurfaced by lavas that obliterate older cratering. A little like the lunar maria in age and appearance, these smooth terrains show evidence of accumulations up to a kilometre thick formed by repeated lava flows (Head, J.W. and 25 others, 2011. Flood volcanism in the northern high latitudes of Mercury revealed by MESSENGER. Science, v. 333, p. 1853-1855). As regards the age of these major volcanic features, all that can be said is that they post-date the largest impacts, such as the huge Caloris Basin, and are more sparsely peppered with younger craters. Intriguingly, floors of some of the craters show clusters of small depressions and pits surrounded by light-coloured material of some kind, suggested to be solids condensed from gases that emerged from below (Blewett, D.T. and 17 others 2011. Hollows on Mercury: MESSENGER evidence for geologically recent volatile-related activity. Science, v. 333, p. 1856-1859). While it is only possible to assign youth of these features relative to the craters in which they occur, they indicate an underlying source of volatiles; a factor weighing against previous accounts of Mercury’s evolution by either solar ablation or giant impact.
Considerably more interesting – at least to me – are the results from the geochemically oriented instruments. Calcium, magnesium, aluminium and silicon estimates by the XRF-like instrument present not the slightest evidence for a feldspar-rich component of the early crust akin to the lunar highlands; another blow for the giant-impact and magma-ocean hypotheses. Mercury’s surface seems to be similar in composition to the most ancient terrestrial lavas: Mg-rich mafic to ultramafic komatiites, compared with the more iron-rich tholeiites of the lunar maria (Nittler, L.R. and 14 others. The major-element composition of Mercury’s surface from Messenger X-ray spectrometry. Science, v. 333, p. 1847-1850). They are ten-times more enriched in sulfur than surface rocks on the Earth or Moon, though iron content seems too low to accommodate it in minerals such as pyrite (FeS2). High sulfur content could point to an origin for Mercury from accretion of highly reduced material in the solar nebula, the Earth-Moon system being broadly more oxidised. Gamma-ray spectrometry to analyse the abundances of potassium, uranium and thorium (Peplowski, P.N. and 16 others. Radioactive elements on Mercury’s surface from MESSENGER: implications for the planet’s formation and evolution. Science, v. 333, p. 1850-1852) doesn’t serve previous ideas about the planet’s history either. Potassium, which is moderately volatile, is too high relative to more refractory uranium and thorium to support any notion of solar ablation of the surface, but the U, Th and K proportions are roughly like those of the Earth’s oceanic crust. One of the plots shows K-Th relationships for supposed meteorites from Mars and the extensive gamma-ray data from Mars itself, in which few of the meteorites fall in the K-Th ‘cloud’ for the Martian surface: now there’s a thing….
It must be emphasised that the geochemical results are but a fraction of what should eventually emerge from these powerful instruments. However, these early data place Mercury in much the same envelope as the other rock worlds of the Inner Solar System (Kerr, R.A. 2011. Mercury looking less exotic, more a member of the family. Science, v. 333, p. 1812).
Related articles
- ‘Hollows’ mark Mercury’s surface (bbc.co.uk)
- Closer look at Mercury reveals mystery hollows on planets surface (theglobeandmail.com)
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