Related papers: Mercury's Protoplanetary Mass
Recently, I reported the discovery of a new fundamental relationship of the major elements (Fe, Mg, Si) of chondrites that admits the possibility that ordinary chondrite meteorites are derived from two components, a relatively oxidized and…
The high occurrence on Earth of ordinary chondrite meteorites and the making of models based upon arbitrary assumptions has led to some confusion about the origin of ordinary chondrites. Major element fractionation among chondrites has been…
Major element fractionation among chondrites has been discussed for decades as ratios relative to Si or Mg. Expressing ratios relative to Fe leads to a new relationship admitting the possibility that ordinary chondrite meteorites are…
Mercury's core mass fraction (CMF) is ~0.7, more than double that of the other rocky planets in the solar system, which have CMFs of ~0.3. The origin of Mercury's large, iron-rich core remains unknown. Adding to this mystery, an elusive…
The chemical composition of a planetary body reflects its starting conditions modified by numerous processes during its formation and geological evolution. Measurements by X-ray, gamma-ray, and neutron spectrometers on the MESSENGER…
Planets and the stars they orbit are born from the same cloud of gas and dust, and the primordial compositions of rocky exoplanets have been assumed to have iron and refractory abundance ratios consistent with their host star. To test this…
The Earth, Venus, Mars, and some extrasolar terrestrial planets have a mass and radius that is consistent with a mass fraction of about 30% metallic core and 70% silicate mantle. At the inner frontier of the solar system, Mercury has a…
Mercury's high uncompressed mass density suggests that the planet is largely composed of iron, either bound within metal (mainly Fe-Ni), or iron sulfide. Recent results from the MESSENGER mission to Mercury imply a low temperature history…
The origin of Mercury still remains poorly understood compared to the other rocky planets of the Solar System. One of the most relevant constraints that any formation model has to fulfill refers to its internal structure, with a predominant…
The origin of Mercury's anomalous core and low FeO surface mineralogy are outstanding questions in planetary science. Mercury's composition may result from cosmochemical controls on the precursor solids that accreted to form Mercury. High…
Mercury has an unusually large metal core comprising ~70% of its mass comparing to all other terrestrial planets in the solar system. Giant impacts can remove a significant fraction of the silicate mantle of a chondritic proto-Mercury and…
The pathway to forming the iron-rich planet Mercury remains mysterious. Mercury's core makes up 70% of the planetary mass, which implies a significant enrichment of iron relative to silicates, while its mantle is strongly depleted in…
In spite of substantial advancements in simulating planet formation, the planet Mercury's diminutive mass, isolated orbit, and the absence of planets with shorter orbital periods in the solar system continue to befuddle numerical accretion…
Comparing compositional models of the terrestrial planets provides insights into physicochemical processes that produced planet-scale similarities and differences. The widely accepted compositional model for Mars assumes Mn and more…
The classical scenario of terrestrial planet formation is characterized by a phase of giant impacts among Moon-to-Mars mass planetary embryos. While the classic model and its adaptations have produced adequate analogs of the outer three…
Modern terrestrial planet formation models are highly successful at consistently generating planets with masses and orbits analogous to those of Earth and Venus. In stark contrast to classic theoretical predictions and inferred demographics…
Aspects of our Solar System's formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state…
The inner solar system's modern orbital architecture provides inferences into the epoch of terrestrial planet formation; a ~100 Myr time period of planet growth via collisions with planetesimals and other proto-planets. While classic…
Of the solar system's four terrestrial planets, the origin of Mercury is perhaps the most mysterious. Modern numerical simulations designed to model the dynamics of terrestrial planet formation systematically fail to replicate Mercury;…
Chondrites, the building blocks of the terrestrial planets, have mass and atomic proportions of oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon totaling $\geq$90\% and variable Mg/Si ($\sim$25\%), Fe/Si (factor of $\geq$2), and Fe/O (factor of…