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See the original image at telegraph.co.uk

Mercury is shrinking, Nasa space probe reveals

telegraph.co.uk — The smallest planet in the solar system is shrinking, a space mission to Mercury has revealed.The Messenger space probe, which began its 5 billion mile journey to Mercury four years ago, has provided new evidence that the closest planet to the sun is contracting in on itself.

Bury
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  • nackle, on 07/04/2008, -0/+34Uh Oh!!! Pluto you about to have some company.....
  • ferrell, on 07/04/2008, -1/+62Shrinkage?

    And Mercury can't even use the excuse that it's cold out.
    • carpespasm, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4it's plenty cold on the night side.
    • soogy, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2It's actually freezing out in most of space. Shrinkage ahoy.
      • Vosona, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Not when you're right next to the ***** sun.
    • Hoody28405, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Dugg for shrinkage.
    • specialK16, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4"Do women know about shrinkage?"
      "What do you mean, like laundry?"
      "No..."
      "Like when a man goes swimming... Afterwards..."
      "It shrinks?"
      "Like a frightened turtle."
      "Why does it shrink?"
      "It just does."
      "I don't know how you guys walk around with those things."
  • EdmontonEh, on 07/04/2008, -8/+2You beat me to shrinkage.. hmmmm... so, Dugg for eruptions
  • tas08, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11Cool new info! I'd never considered the shrinkage that would occur from the hardening of the core... also, the fact that the core is still active is really interesting to me!
    • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2It makes sense if you think about it though; energetic expansion and that...
    • Fergy, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2How could it not be active when the Sun keeps trying to tear it apart?
      • bosssmiley, on 07/07/2008, -0/+1Mercury is just *that* damn lazy. ;-)
  • artofficial, on 07/04/2008, -8/+2Awesome article.

    oh and uhhh...

    BRING BACK PLUTO!

    please...
  • smitas, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Will it vanish?
    • Scynet, on 07/04/2008, -3/+1In time, I suppose. I hope it won't have any catastrophic consequences affecting OUR orbit....hrr..
  • jdubsta235, on 07/04/2008, -1/+18oh george castanza... only he knows what real shrinkage is.
  • beerock, on 07/04/2008, -8/+8I see a trend...
    Shrinking like the US economy, median IQ quotient, and youth fitness level !!!
    • xchino, on 07/04/2008, -1/+10IQ quotient is redundant as IQ is an acronym for intelligence quotient. You may have just proven your own point.
    • tinselt0wn, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Dugg up because I want everyone to see the irony.
      • apzdsx, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention...

        Now that... is... irony!
  • jordanleegauci, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1Mercury is about to become a Plutoid.
  • neopolaris, on 07/04/2008, -8/+2...OR it may not be shrinking. They really have no idea. It may expand and then contract but the bottom line is that they really don't know.
  • adml_shake, on 07/04/2008, -0/+12That close, and that many laps around the sun? It was bound to drop a few pounds...
  • tcpip4lyfe, on 07/04/2008, -9/+3What about Uranus?
  • trenchcoat, on 07/04/2008, -7/+13But Uranus is expanding.
    • Vosona, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Thank McDonald's for that.


      ...I killed it, didn't I?
    • specialK16, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Why don't you come to Mianus instead?
  • carpespasm, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1I wonder how much of an effect having solar storms blast at it without any atmosphere to speak of blows off material. Gravity probably just pulls it back in I would guess.
  • PocchieTheMan, on 07/04/2008, -1/+65 Billion miles? Aren't we only 93 million miles from the sun? What am I missing?
    • Soniti, on 07/04/2008, -2/+4I was thinking the exact same thing. Wouldn't that make mercury further away than us? And Venus? And Mars...? And the asteroid belt..?

      What the *****?
    • TripNasty, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6The space probes travel in orbits and have already made several passes in those orbits. The Messenger probe has already travelled around Venus twice and the earth once on it's way to Mercury. They don't travel in a linear path.
    • ferrell, on 07/04/2008, -0/+15You cannot get to mercury (or any other planet, for that matter) by traveling in a straight line.

      This video shows the flight path of the Messenger spacecraft...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otF2FjpCyZk
      • ketemphor, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Well, you can, technically. At least in a straight line from where you are to where the planet will be when you get there.

        But it requires orders of magnitude more energy to do so, both in accelerating into your initial vector and in decelerating off of that vector and into a matching orbit. It's much more energy efficient to plot a multiple-orbit course that brings you down into the lower orbit more slowly.
      • MrZaiko, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1you actually made sense!
        But with today's technology going around orbits seems to be the only way.
      • umbrellainabin, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1no *****
  • lordblue, on 07/04/2008, -7/+0That's what I was wondering, how did it need to travel 5 Billion miles to get to Mercury, what did it take the exceptionally scenic route?
  • celerityfm, on 07/04/2008, -3/+4(2010) IT'S SHRINKING!!!!!! (/2010)
  • sirber, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3I'm raising funds to save Mercury. Who's with me?
    • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2Just put on a concert. Works for everything else.
      • brownspank, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2No, putting up an online petition works best. Trust me.
  • bassman12593, on 07/04/2008, -6/+1Maybe people will start doing stuff about global warming after they see what it can do.
    • TripNasty, on 07/04/2008, -3/+0I'm pretty sure the term 'global warming' doesn't apply to Mercury since there are no humans there.
  • damndj, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1Damn we're screwed.
  • exscape, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1Lets just hope it doesn't collapse to a singularity. ;)
  • skyz, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1anorexia ? :)
  • jull1234, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2And I thought Earth had problems..
  • norman619, on 07/04/2008, -3/+3This is pretty interesting given the new view that the Earth is growing(expanding). Just when we thought we a handle on this we find out we may be completely wrong.

    Links for those unaware of this theory:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_earth_theor ...

    http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf037/sf037p11.ht ...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yqBaD5VwrQ
    • Duositex, on 07/07/2008, -0/+1Expanding Earth Theory (a.k.a. The "I Didn't Finish High School So I Believe This" Theory) is completely ridiculous. It's not "the new vew." It's a view that a few idiots share.
  • Fallout911, on 07/04/2008, -2/+10It's UNDER 9,000!
  • benburned, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3Oh no. Don't tell Gore.
    • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1Gore's eating chunks of Mercury; that's why it's shrinking.

      (he was told by his science advisers that quicksilver is a universal panacea with no possible side-effects)
    • chaosblade77, on 07/05/2008, -0/+0I was going to make a global warning joke, but I should have known someone (10 different people) would have gotten to it first.
  • twinklyJesus, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9Is it shrinking or do they just need to adjust their facts about its actual size?
    • Blg7, on 07/04/2008, -1/+0Hint: try clicking the link and reading the article.
  • ZincSaucier, on 07/04/2008, -4/+4Global warming don't seem so bad now does it?
  • SEANWOOKIE, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5It was in the pool!!
  • rationalist, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6All these worlds are yours, except Mercury. Attempt no landings there.
  • bigsteve3OOO, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1OMG lets figure out how to tax people to stop this. will call them shrinkage offset credits.
  • Digg413, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2It's all George W. Bush's fault!!! His damn environmental negligence could have protected it. Al Gore could have stopped this!!
  • kolop1, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Is mercury 5 billion miles away?
    http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu//cosmic_kids/As ...
  • CSHYDRASHOK, on 07/04/2008, -3/+1I don't understand the distances they speak of, 5 billion miles is retarded. Mercury never gets further away than 140 million miles away.
    Dugg down for stupidity.
    • noen, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2You're digging yourself down?
    • Daxx22, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1How very ironic.
      • apzdsx, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention...

        Now that... is... irony!
  • krisscofield, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1LOL @ "Crust Buckling"
  • mingohills, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4Does this change my horoscope??
  • bakshi, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1Maybe it will collapse into itself and turn into an additional sun?
  • DuffyDirect, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1Wasn't Mercury wobbling the whole basis of making Newton obsolete and Einstein's space-time revolutionary? What if wobbling has something to do with whatever the heck is making it shrink, could space-time be a load of BS then?
    • Soval, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2The perihelion precession (I think that's what you mean) can't be caused by the shrinking because of the conservation of angular momentum (and there are of course a lot of other proofs for General Relativity).
  • blankoboy, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1"I was in the pool!!!" - Mercury.
  • veijeri, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2And Leon is getting larger.
  • friday1970, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4First thing I thought when I read about this is that someone will like this to human made global warming and be serious about it. I'm sure glad diggers didn't disappoint.
    • IconoclastStill, on 07/05/2008, -0/+3The cult of gorebull scamming is strong in some of them, Master Yoda.
  • Tssst, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1"After five months of analysis we know have some fantastic results,"

    I would expect that in Digg comments, not in a supposedly journalistic piece of work. Do these people not proofread?
  • frosted, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0-180 degrees Celsius at night. That would cause ANYONE to have shrinkage.
  • tony23, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1It's because of the quantum black hole at the center.
  • JaXaL, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1Give it some time and soon we will be the second planet from sun. Give it some more time and we will be the first planet from the sun. Around 4-5 billions later we will be the first planet from the sun after which the sun will eat us and we be ded.
  •  

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