Mercury, the Incredible Shrinking Planet

Friday, August 06 2:46 pm

Sean Solomon, director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution, spoke at the American Museum of Natural History on July 26 chronicling new insights into the solar system’s innermost planet, Mercury, drawn from new images coming from the MESSENGER spacecraft.

Listen to the Podcast: Download | RSS | iTunes (1 hr 25 mins, 98.4 MB)

Over 500 scientists and members of the public attended the event, titled Exploring Mercury with the MESSENGER Spacecraft, which was also the Barringer Invitational Lecture of the 73rd annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society. Listen to the podcast to hear Solomon describe the spacecraft, which was launched in 2004 and will begin orbiting Mercury in 2011. Solomon also discusses new research based on images taken during MESSENGER’s initial “fly-bys” of the planet, showing evidence of volcanic activity on Mercury as well as evidence that this planet shrank as it cooled after formation.

Credit: I. Erb

Credit: I. Erb