Mercury's Internal Structure

TL;DR

This paper reviews current observational data and models of Mercury's internal structure, exploring its core, mantle, and crust, and discusses implications for its thermal evolution, geology, and magnetic field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of Mercury's internal structure models based on observational constraints and discusses their implications for planetary evolution.

Findings

Radial profiles of pressure, density, and gravity within Mercury's interior.

Influence of an inner core on Mercury's spin state and moment of inertia.

Implications for Mercury's thermal history and magnetic field generation.

Abstract

We describe the current state of knowledge about Mercury's interior structure. We review the available observational constraints, including mass, size, density, gravity field, spin state, composition, and tidal response. These data enable the construction of models that represent the distribution of mass inside Mercury. In particular, we infer radial profiles of the pressure, density, and gravity in the core, mantle, and crust. We also examine Mercury's rotational dynamics and the influence of an inner core on the spin state and the determination of the moment of inertia. Finally, we discuss the wide-ranging implications of Mercury's internal structure on its thermal evolution, surface geology, capture in a unique spin-orbit resonance, and magnetic field generation.