Mercury is an amazing and mysterious planet
Let's remind that the dark, graphite surface of the planet closest to the Sun gave birth to the most extravagant versions - up to an artificial alien ship, the size of a planet … All this, of course, is a little too much. NASA experts, after conducting a detailed study, believe that they have found a rational explanation. How true is it? To judge you …
As you know, the surface of Mercury is unusually dark. Scientists have built many theories as to why the planet has such a surface. Researchers now believe that Mercury once covered a layer of graphite - the same material used, for example, in a pencil lead. Also graphite perfectly reflects the strongest heat …
Experts analyzed data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft, which collected a lot of information about the first planet from the sun before crashing into its surface. According to scientists, the mysterious dark matter is nothing more than carbon in the form of graphite. This graphite may be what is left of Mercury's original crust, which was later covered in volcanic eruptions.
Patrick Peplowski and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory analyzed the results of the analysis of the darkest parts of the surface of Mercury, which were recorded by the Messenger spacecraft at the end of its mission.
They found that dark "matter" on Mercury was rich in carbon and was present near large impact craters. According to scientists, we can say that dark material "comes out" to the surface from a deeper layer of the planet. The substance is emitted at a time when, say, fireballs or meteorites hit the surface of the planet.
Just like the Moon and other inner planets, Mercury probably had a huge ocean of magma at some point in its early stages of development and its surface was very hot.
“At the time when this ocean of magma began to cool down and minerals began to crystallize, those minerals that had solidified settled to the bottom. And the graphite remained on the surface and accumulated in the original crust of Mercury,”says Rachel Klima, Peplovsky's laboratory colleague.
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But this original crust was subsequently hidden by new layers due to volcanic phenomena or other geological processes. Some of this carbon-rich material then mixed with the overlying rock, giving the surface of Mercury a mysterious dark color.
“If we have truly identified the remains of the original Mercury crust, it will help us understand the early history of the planet,” concludes Peplovsky. The key word is "if" …
It is worth recalling that Messenger is an American automatic interplanetary station for the study of Mercury. The device was launched into space on August 3, 2004. On March 18, 2011, the station safely entered the planet's orbit. The mission was completed on April 30, 2015.
Also interesting is the hypothesis linking many anomalies of Mercury with the fact that it was previously not a planet, but a satellite of Venus. They "parted" about 400 million years ago.
