NASA’s MESSENGER mission tagged posts

Enhanced color image of Mercury. The bright, circular deposit in the upper center of the image is an enormous effusive volcanic deposit, situated within the largest impact crater on the planet, the Caloris basin. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Institution of Washington

New research from North Carolina State University add insight into the geological evolution of Mercury in particular, and what happens when rocky planets cool and contract in general. There are two types of volcanic activity: effusive and explosive. Explosive volcanism is often a violent event that results in large ash and debris eruptions, such as the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980...