ERC Consolidator Grant · 2023
The origin and evolution of a blastered Mercury
Mercury is a metal-rich planet from which Earth-based and spacecraft data were collected. Our understanding of its interior structure and thermochemical evolution is however still relatively poor. This is due to: (1) large uncertainties on its polar moment of inertia and surface composition; this will be largely improved by the BepiColombo mission; (2) an unknown bulk-planet composition; and (3) a poor knowledge of some key thermophysical properties (e.g. phase stability, temperature, density) of solid/liquid metals and silicates inside Mercury. This is because under Mercury’s reducing conditions, elements behave differently than on other planets. Currently available phase diagrams for the…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.