Publication Date:
2011-10-01
Description:
High-resolution images of Mercury's surface from orbit reveal that many bright deposits within impact craters exhibit fresh-appearing, irregular, shallow, rimless depressions. The depressions, or hollows, range from tens of meters to a few kilometers across, and many have high-reflectance interiors and halos. The host rocks, which are associated with crater central peaks, peak rings, floors, and walls, are interpreted to have been excavated from depth by the crater-forming process. The most likely formation mechanisms for the hollows involve recent loss of volatiles through some combination of sublimation, space weathering, outgassing, or pyroclastic volcanism. These features support the inference that Mercury's interior contains higher abundances of volatile materials than predicted by most scenarios for the formation of the solar system's innermost planet.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Blewett, David T -- Chabot, Nancy L -- Denevi, Brett W -- Ernst, Carolyn M -- Head, James W -- Izenberg, Noam R -- Murchie, Scott L -- Solomon, Sean C -- Nittler, Larry R -- McCoy, Timothy J -- Xiao, Zhiyong -- Baker, David M H -- Fassett, Caleb I -- Braden, Sarah E -- Oberst, Jurgen -- Scholten, Frank -- Preusker, Frank -- Hurwitz, Debra M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Sep 30;333(6051):1856-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1211681.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA. david.blewett@jhuapl.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21960626" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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