Was Mercury once habitable?

[Judi Lynn]

Posted by Paul Scott Anderson in SPACE | April 5, 2020

As unlikely as it may sound, Mercury may have once been able to support subsurface microscopic life, according to a new study from the Planetary Science Institute.



Mercury – closest planet to the sun in our solar system – as seen during the first flyby of the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2008. Image via NASA.

When it comes to the possibility of life elsewhere in our solar system, Mercury is easily one of the last places you’d think of. Being the closest planet to the sun – with no true atmosphere – it is a broiling, uninhabitable place of desolation. But was it always like that? As unlikely as it seems, a new study announced by researchers at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) suggests that some regions in Mercury’s subsurface might have once been hospitable enough for prebiotic chemistry or – perhaps – even simple microscopic lifeforms.

The intriguing findings were published in a new peer-reviewed paper in Scientific Reports on March 16, 2020.

The study focuses on Mercury’s chaotic terrain (aka its weird terrain): vast, cratered and “knobby” landscapes first seen by the Mariner 10 flybys in 1974. There are evolving ideas on how it came to be, but – according to the new study – this terrain was created by the removal of massive amounts of volatiles – chemical elements and compounds with low boiling points – in Mercury’s upper crust (and not simply seismic disturbances from the Caloris Basin impact as long thought).

More:
https://earthsky.org/space/mercury-habitability-chaotic-terrain-messenger-astrobiolog

[tblue37]

1. Cool. K&R. (Or not cool, being so near the sun.) nt