You Heard it Here--Mercury is Hot!
Way back on June 15, 2006, a Balinese volcano predicted that planet Mercury's interior is "hot." Using the radio telescopes at Arecibo, Jodrell Bank and Goldstone radio astronomers have just confirmed that the interior is indeed molten. You heard it here first! Their research will be published in the May 4 issue of SCIENCE.
As has been described here, planets like Mercury formed when a tiny singularity was caught in the gaseous disk of the infant solar system. The singularity was far too tiny to suck everything up, but the small amount it did eat generated radiation which made it grow red hot. Larger particles were attracted until we had a sphere of rock with a hot centre. This was the birth of a planet.
The singularity is still there, having kept Mercury's core hot for billions of years. It spins inside Mercury, dragging part of the core with it. This process powers the dynamo of a magnetic field. Mercury's powerful magnetic field is the chief sign of a tiny Black Hole.
Astronaut Wally Schirra has passed away at age 84. One of the original seven astronauts, Schirra flew on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Gus Grissom nearly matched that record, flying Mercury and Gemini before being assigned to Apollo. Unfortunately, Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire 40 years ago. The program recovered and was flying again by 1968..