The Sun s magnetism gave Mercury its huge core of iron syfy.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from syfy.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Why Does Mercury Have a Big Iron Core?
Scientists from Tohoku University and the University of Maryland have pinpointed the strong magnetic field of the early sun as the reason behind the radial variation of rock and metal in rocky planets’ cores. This magnetic field, which pulled small iron grains inward, explains Mercury’s big iron core and why Mars has so little iron in its core.
The details of their research were published in the journal Progress in Earth and Planetary Science on July 5, 2021.
Planets have iron cores surrounded by a rocky shell, mostly made up of mantle and a thin skin of crust. The four inner planets of our Solar System, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars have their own distinctive size and density. These differences have long since puzzled scientists.
Mercury s large iron core is thanks to the sun s magnetic field slashgear.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from slashgear.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
New Research Blames Sun’s Magnetism For Mercury’s Large Core
Proximity to sun s magnetic field determines a planet s interior composition, study says.
Image Credit:
Email
A new study disputes the prevailing hypothesis on why Mercury has a big core relative to its mantle (the layer between a planet’s core and crust).
For decades, scientists argued that hit-and-run collisions with other bodies during the formation of our solar system blew away much of Mercury’s rocky mantle and left the big, dense, metal core inside.
But new research reveals that collisions are not to blame–the sun’s magnetism is.