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The Mercury Messenger space probe has revealed huge
deposits of iron and titanium on the planets surface.
While Venus, Earth and Mars have a thick shell of
silicate rock, it seems Mercury is very different,
with very little silicate. For all intents and
purposes, Mercury is just a big ball of metal.
I suspect that mining it, however, could be just
a little on the expensive side ... although the
temperature difference between light and shadow
there WOULD offer tremendous opportunities to
extract solar power.
In any event, if we ever just HAVE to have mass
quantities of titanium, we know where to find it.
Hmmm ... ever read an old book called 'Ringworld' :-)
The balance of minerals on Mercury has led some to
speculate that it was once a 'normal' planet ... but
was hit by something that smashed-off the silicate
shell.
I'll offer more sensible speculation ...
If you've noticed, the sun is HOT. More than just
hot, it also emits a constant 'wind' of high-energy
particles.
So, a new sun with a thick disk of protoplanetary
dust and junk around it - what happens ? Heat and
pressure will cause the various compounds in the
disk to migrate. The ligher ones will be pushed
the furthest away while the heavier ones won't
move very much. This leaves you with heavy metal
near the sun, silicates and lighter elements
further out and mostly ice and light gasses beyond
there.
This is exactly what we see in our solar system.
Call it 'fractional distillation' or, less properly
but neater-sounding, 'solar chromotography'.
The probe also reveals relatively recent volcanic
activity on Mercury. Smaller than Mars, Mercury
should be geologically dead - cooled-off a long
time ago. So, either tidal forces are distorting
the planet, causing it to heat up, OR, in keeping
with the 'distillation' idea there's also a lot
of uranium in there and radioactive decay is
keeping the interior warm.
Alas, because of its volatility, there may not
be much actual mercury in Mercury ... most of
that is probably on Venus and Earth. |
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