Scientists have unveiled amazing facts about mercury.
Geophysicists from the US and the UK explained the origin of “Canada” on mercury – so scientists call the area on the surface of the planet, comparable in size with the country and different from the rest of the heavenly bodies in their properties.
Unusual territory, as scientists believe, arose in ancient times as a result of intensive grinding and heating attentitive chondrites at a depth of 400 kilometers on the border of the mantle and core of the planet. Mantle and chondrites then the crushed rose on the planet’s surface and cooled, forming the observed station of the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry) landscape.
Attentitive chondrites are a group of meteorites that contain large concentrations of sulphur (1-4% by mass). Among the falling to Earth of the heavenly bodies, accounting for about two percent. Scientists believe that “Canada” on the planet formed that this type of celestial bodies, because their chemical composition is reminiscent of the mercurial.
To such conclusions experts came, after laboratory experiments simulating the formation is similar to the “Canada” territory. To do this, Geophysics compressed sample estanciero of chondrite to the pressure of 50 thousand times greater than normal atmospheric pressure on Earth.
“Canada is 15 per cent of the surface of mercury (ten million square kilometers). The area originated 4.2 billion years ago, it is a dotted with craters area, and it is surrounded by the landscapes of the young age of 3.8 billion years. The unusual terrain found station MESSENGER in 2015 with the help of x-ray spectrometers.
Mercury – the smallest and lightest planet in the Solar system easier and less Land is about 20 times. The average density of it is about the same as that of the Earth. Year on the planet lasts about 88 days.
Mercury from the other planets in the Solar system has a large metallic core accounts for 85 percent of the radius of this celestial body. For comparison, the Earth’s core has only half its diameter.
MESSENGER launched on 3 August 2004 from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral with the help of the carrier rocket Delta II. The orbit of mercury, the unit had reached March 18, 2011. Just MESSENGER traveled more than 7.9 billion kilometers, including 15 trips around the Sun, three around mercury, two around Venus and one around the Earth. The unit ceased to exist in April 2015
