The findings suggest that Mercury is far from being ‘dead’ or dull, as astronomers once supposed.<\/p>\n
Instead, our neighbor’s<\/a> ‘hellscape’ of a surface seems to be alive and kicking \u2013 geologically speaking, that is.<\/p>\n Related: A Fortune of Hidden Diamonds Could Be Concealed Inside Mercury<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Until recently, scientists had catalogued only a handful of Mercury’s bright streaks, known formally as lineae.<\/p>\n Now, astronomer Valentin Bickel from the University of Bern in Germany and his colleagues at the Astronomical Observatory of Padova in Italy have put together a survey covering 402 of them.<\/p>\n Reading between the bright lines, the team has painted a whole new portrait of Mercury \u2013 one that is surprisingly volatile for a little planet with no atmosphere that has had 4.5 billion years<\/a> to cool off.<\/p>\n The researchers used machine learning<\/a> to analyze 100,000 high-resolution images of the planet taken between 2011 and 2015.<\/p>\n Their findings reveal that the long bright lines on Mercury’s surface tend to cluster on the sun-facing slopes of its craters, although they don’t always appear to emanate from hollows.<\/p>\n Lineae on other planets<\/a> are thought to erode quickly, so the study authors suspect that the streaks are still forming and evolving on Mercury today. In other words, these aren’t signs of a turbulent past<\/a> but of a mercurial present, based on the flow of heat and volatile materials, like sulfur, from below the planet’s surface.<\/p>\n “Volatile material could reach the surface from deeper layers through networks of cracks in the rock caused by the preceding impact,” explains<\/a> Bickel.<\/p>\n “Most of the streaks appear to originate from bright depressions, so-called ‘hollows.’ These hollows are probably also formed by the outgassing of volatile material and are usually located in the shallow interior or along the edges of large impact craters.”<\/p>\n The team hopes to prove their hypothesis right using new images of Mercury from missions at the European Space Agency<\/a> (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).<\/p>\n If Mercury’s surface is still active, we should get a closer glimpse soon.<\/p>\n![\"Streaks](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-642x428.jpg\")
The streaks on the slopes of a crater wall on Mercury in an image taken on 10 April 2014. (NASA\/JHUAPL\/Carnegie Institution of Washington<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"Streaks](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image1-642x428.jpg\")
Bright streaks are clearly visible around a crater on Mercury, in an image taken on 1 August 2012. (NASA\/JHUAPL\/Carnegie Institution of Washington<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"Streaks](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/streaks-on-mercury-sho-642x200.jpg\")
Conceptual hypothesis of slope lineae formation on Mercury. (Bickel et al., Commun. Earth. Environ., 2026<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"Streaks](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/streaks-on-mercury-sho-1-642x599.jpg\")
Examples of slope lineae that do not originate from hollows. (Bickel et al., Commun. Earth. Environ., 2026<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"Audition](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Mid-Article-Promos-Casting-Call-1-642x272.jpg\")
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