{"id":3927713,"date":"2026-08-28T12:03:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/mercurys-crust-points-to-deeper-hotter-volcanic-origins-than-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T12:03:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:03:53","slug":"mercurys-crust-points-to-deeper-hotter-volcanic-origins-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/mercurys-crust-points-to-deeper-hotter-volcanic-origins-than-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury&#8217;s crust points to deeper, hotter volcanic origins than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The evolutionary histories of Earth and Mercury differ fundamentally. The smallest planet, closest to the sun, likely began cooling early on, much like a setting pudding: As early as about 1 billion years after its formation, Mercury&#8217;s volcanic activity came to a halt, and a solid, continuous &#8220;rock skin&#8221; formed on the planet&#8217;s surface. Earth&#8217;s crust, on the other hand, is still in motion: Volcanism and plate tectonics are constantly stirring up the &#8220;Earth pudding.&#8221; Exactly what Mercury&#8217;s unique volcanic past looked like and how it shaped its current appearance remain unclear. However, researchers can gain important clues from the composition of its surface.<\/div>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-08-mercury-crust-deeper-hotter-volcanic.html\" target=\"_blank\">Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The evolutionary histories of Earth and Mercury differ fundamentally. The smallest planet, closest to the sun, likely began cooling early on, much like a setting pudding: As early as about 1 billion years after its formation, Mercury&#8217;s volcanic activity came to a halt, and a solid, continuous &#8220;rock skin&#8221; formed on the planet&#8217;s surface. Earth&#8217;s [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3927713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3927713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3927713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3927713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3927713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3927713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}