How Mercury Became Smaller

During the fly-by around Mercury, the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, observed what seemed to be scalloped edged cliffs which had been mostly created by the shrinking action of the planet as it cooled in time. The same evidence has been observed by ... [ read more >> ]

Image taken by MESSENGER during the first fly-by. You can see evidence of compression on the top-left low-right diagonal

Image comment: Image taken by MESSENGER during the first fly-by. You can see evidence of compression on the top-left low-right diagonal
Image credits: NASA/MESSENGER

Image taken by MESSENGER during the first fly-by. You can see evidence of compression on the top-left low-right diagonal