Mercury

Pencil This In: Mercury’s Surface is Darkened by Graphite

Posted by Jason Major on
Expanded-color image of Mercury's 52-km-wide Degas crater, surrounded by an abundance of curious dark stains. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Expanded-color image of Mercury’s 52-km-wide Degas crater, surrounded by an abundance of curious dark stains. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

Monochromatic and covered in craters, Mercury may outwardly resemble our Moon but the similarities abruptly end there. Ever since the MESSENGER spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury in 2011, and indeed even since Mariner 10‘s flyby in 1974, peculiar “dark spots” observed on the planet’s surface have intrigued scientists as to their composition and origin. Now, thanks to high-resolution spectral data acquired by MESSENGER during the last few months of its mission, researchers have confirmed that Mercury’s dark spots contain a form of carbon called graphite, excavated by impacts from its ancient crust.

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2 Comments

  1. 081546290536 - jual aromaterapi says:
    March 7, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    I like your article, very inspiring and thank you for your post

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Jeff Barani says:
    March 19, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    A wondrous discovery but if one day we should go on Mercury to have the graphite mines of our pencils, the latter risk to be very expensive to us !!
    Jeff Barani from Vence (France)

    Like

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