All Images
News Release 07-047
Mercury's Soft Center
Ground-based telescopes find strong evidence that Mercury has molten core
This material is available primarily for archival purposes. Telephone numbers or other contact information may be out of date; please see current contact information at media contacts.
An artist's rendition of the interior structure of Mercury suggests that the metallic core extends from the center through a large fraction of the planet. Ground-based telescope observations suggest that the outer core is molten.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (434 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.
An artistic rendering of the observational geometry researchers used to study Mercury shows a radar signal (yellow) transmitted from the Goldstone antenna in California. The radar echoes (red) are received at the Goldstone antenna and at NSF's Robert C. Byrd telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia.
Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (447 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.
The illustration depicts the trajectory (green circles, 1 second timestep) of radar speckles tied to the rotation of Mercury. Observers measured how long it takes for the pattern to travel between two antennas (red triangles) to measure the rotation rate of Mercury.
Credit: Jean-Luc Margot, Cornell University
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (60 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.