Scientists say that the planet Mercury has been actively shrinking over the billions of years that it’s orbited the Sun, a process that’s leaving cracked-up wrinkles behind like an old apple.
At just one-third the size of Earth, it’s already the smallest planet in our solar system — it’s larger than Pluto, but Pluto is no longer classified as a planet — in a title it’s bound to hold on to as its continues to diminish in physical size.
Now, as detailed in a new paper by a team of scientists from the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Space Research, the oddball planet’s shrivelling could be occurring at an even faster-than-expected rate, losing up to 14.5 miles of total diameter since it formed billions of years ago. That’s anywhere from ten to 30 percent more than previously thought.
The scientists suggest that debris from impact craters may have hidden this accelerated shrinking, a process largely thought to be the result of Mercury running out of heat — “like a balloon left out in the cold,” per an accompanying press release.
