{"id":623121,"date":"2026-09-13T05:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T05:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623121\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T05:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T05:52:18","slug":"solar-systems-smallest-planet-shrinking-faster-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623121\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar system’s smallest planet shrinking faster than we thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s less Mercury in the system.<\/p>\n

Scientists found that Mercury, the solar system\u2019s smallest planet, is shrinking far faster than previously believed, offering a never-before-seen window into the planet\u2019s composition and history, per a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are approaching the reality of Mercury\u2019s evolution,\u201d the study\u2019s lead author Gaku Nishiyama, a planetary scientist at the\u00a0German Aerospace Center\u00a0Institute of Space Research, told AP<\/a> in an email.<\/p>\n

While this proverbial raisin in the sun has been contracting for 4.5 billion years \u2014 a result of the cooling process following its fiery birth \u2014 the rate of decline may be 30% more than previously thought.<\/p>\n

\"Mercury.\"A close-up view of Mercury, which is downsizing faster than we thought. NASA<\/p>\n

This shrinkage amounts to as much as 14 miles, which is a significant loss given that Mercury only measures around 3,000 miles across \u2014 one third the width of Earth.<\/p>\n

Understandably, studying the first rock from the Sun is no easy feat, as the entity is obscured by the blinding light from our home star. It\u2019s also the second-hottest planet after Venus, reaching temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mercury.\"A composite image shows Mercury as it appeared to the MESSENGER spacecraft following a flyby of the planet on Tuesday, October 22, 2013. NASA\/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory\/Carnegie Institution of Washington via AP<\/p>\n

Thankfully, scientists were able to use data from the\u00a0Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft, which spent over four years orbiting the red hot rock, Time reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

During that time, MESSENGER scientists were able to use the spacecraft\u2019s scanners for special ridges known as shortening structures.<\/p>\n

As the planet contracts, more of these formations crop up, much like wrinkles during aging.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many of Mercury\u2019s so-called wrinkles are obstructed by debris and craters from myriad asteroid impacts and other bombardments, making them difficult to count, the Scientific American reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

To circumvent this, Nishiyama harvested two-dimensional pictures snapped by the MESSENGER\u2019S dual-imaging system. <\/p>\n

He then combined them so every portion of surveyed land was snapped twice, allowing the researchers to construct an uber-detailed map of the topography.<\/p>\n

Scientists found that there far more of these spacely stretch, er, shrink-marks than previously believed, indicating the aforementioned degree of decline.<\/p>\n

Nishiyama believes that tracing this Mercurial recession could help us glean better insight into what\u2019s going on beneath the rocky crust and hopefully shed light on contraction in other planets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s less Mercury in the system. Scientists found that Mercury, the solar system\u2019s smallest planet, is shrinking far…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,81913,3631,82,3630,247],"class_list":["post-623121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mercury-retrograde","tag-planets","tag-science","tag-solar-system","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}