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Mercury and Venus are two of Earth's closest cousins, says Leah Crane. So how did they turn out so hellish? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the planet Mercury including its rapid contraction, evidence of ancient lava floods via the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Messenger probe, and geology research by Christian Klimczak at Washington D.C.'s Carnegie Institution.

The article discusses the discovery of irregularly shaped, luminous pits within the craters of the planet Mercury by the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration's (NASA's) Messenger spacecraft.

The article explains that the likeliest explanation for why planet Mercury is dense is that it lost its outer layers crashing into another planet early in its existence.

The article reports on research done by Jean-Luc Margot and colleagues that used radio telescopes to determine that the planet Mercury has a molten core. This could explain why the planet has a magnetic field. It is felt that since Mercury is so small, its center should have cooled and solidified.

The article reports that, in 1974, the spacecraft Mariner 10 measured a magnetic field around the planet Mercury. Although it is 100 times weaker than Earth's field, the puzzle has always been how such a small planet can be generating any magnetic field at all. The answer lies within the planet's crust. A symmetrical crust can't hold a magnetic field because it would cancel itself out. Lumps and bumps in the crust, like craters and mountains, are too small to destroy this symmetry. But Mercury is actually lopsided, because of its elliptical orbit and the fact that it spins three times for every two revolutions around the sun.