Mercury is Young

NASA has found that Mercury is tectonically active, something previously thought to be exclusive to Earth.  In the past, it was thought that non-terran planets were too old to be tectonically active.

Tom Watters (senior scientist at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum) makes this amazing conclusion that Mercury is shrinking:

The young age of the small scarps means that Mercury joins Earth as a tectonically active planet, with new faults likely forming today as Mercury’s interior continues to cool and the planet contracts.

The scarps (some up to a mile high!) are young since they've survived  bombardment by meteoroids and comets. They are very similar to the lunar scarps found on the Moon.  This indicates that the moon shrank in the past, and might even still be shrinking.

NASA Planetary Science Director Jim Green explains:  

For years, scientists believed that Mercury’s tectonic activity was in the distant past.  It’s exciting to consider that this small planet – not much larger than Earth’s moon – is active even today.

In addition, Mercury has a global magnetic field.  This was supposedly created by a dynamo in the fluid metallic outer core of the planet.   However, this view poses problems for Old Earth Followers (OEF's) as admitted in a paper in Science:

The simplest interpretation of the results presented here is that a core dynamo was present early in Mercury’s history. ...  An early core dynamo can be driven by superadiabatic cooling of the liquid core, but in typical thermal history models this phase has ended by 3.9 Ga.  A later dynamo can be driven by the combined effects of cooling and compositional convection associated with formation of a solid inner core, but in most thermal history models inner core formation does not start until well after 3.7 Ga. [Ga = Billion]

In fact, Stamatios Krigmigis (Emeritus Head of Space Dept. - Johns Hopkins) stated that the discovery of Mercury's magnetic field was "totally unexpected" (see the video above).

Could Mercury be young?  What about our home planet?  We've written a book documenting a youthful earth using evidence from history and science, YES - Young Earth Science.

What do you think?  Let us know:  YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com

#HgEQ  #YoungMercury  #MAGnificentMercury #Kinchlow

Pluto is Young

According to Eric Hand, writing at sciencemag.org, “…parts of the dwarf planet’s [Pluto] surface are crater-free and therefore relatively young … [Pluto] has been geologically reworked in the recent past.”

Hand posits an enigma for followers of Old Earth Fallacies (OEF’s), “Radioactive elements in both bodies’ [Pluto and Charon the largest moon] interiors could provide some of the heat needed for geological mountain building or ice flows that repave the surface.  But Pluto, and especially Charon, are far too small for this heat to persist.”

Methane, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide may form a thin veneer over ice mountains on Pluto.  These layers would quickly sublimate into the atmosphere and erode into space.  If Pluto is young then we have no worries. 

New Horizons co-investigator Cathy Olkin expected that Charon would be an ancient terrain covered in craters.  The lack of craters implies Pluto and Charon are young – thousands of years maybe?

The lack of craters tells of a Young Pluto.  As George Dvorsky (io9.com) states, “…the surface of Pluto is young - really, really young.  To have a surface that young, Pluto must be an active world with processes that regularly resurface the terrain. The big question is: Where is this energy coming from?”

Pluto’s atmosphere is very quickly escaping into space – could this be a bold signal of its youth?  Michael Summers, deputy lead of the New Horizons atmosphere team said, “For an atmosphere that’s escaping like that, supersonically, into space, there's nothing like that in the solar system, except for the solar wind itself.”  If Pluto is young, the supposed scientific curiosity is vaporized.

How much did all this pro-YoungEarth research cost us?  Only $720M.  A more down-to-earth project is to help crowd fund a national survey on the age of the earth.  Young Pluto has a true friend in the fascinating book YES – Young Earth Science by Jay Hall.

Note: emphasis added in quotations.