Hardcore Mercury had soft edges smashed away

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

"Slightly smaller yet twice as massive"

What? Isn't massive used in context of size? Or did they mean Mass? Or do I just have it backward?

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They mean "mass". - for example, a cubic meter of feathers has less mass than a cubic meter of lead. They occupy the same volume and maybe have the same dimensions, but their masses are different.

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

An alternative would have been that Mercury formed about where it was, and the lighter elements didn't exist there in any quantity.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

That's always been my thought. The heat and winds from the sun would have evaporated many of the lighter elements.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Does this mean we could possibly strip mine the planet for massive space based construction projects? (yes I know this is very very very long term)

If thats true, then why don't we see any effect on Venus? In fact, the uncompressed density of a terrestrial planet (the density it would have if it were not compressed by its own gravity) has a linear dependence of the mass - the compressed density of the Earth is higher than Venus' (by the same amount it is more massive than Venus), higher than Mars (again, linear relationship). The moon is slightly different, but given that it formed out of the Earth's mantle, there's no problem with that. The only planet that does not fit into this scheme is Mercury.

So there is on one hand a dependence of mass, but no dependence of distance. If this is true, the logical conclusion would be that Mercury lost a great part of its mantle.

(If you can read german, look at the following picture I did for another forum: http://www.planeten.ch/images/massedichte.gif, if you can't, here's a short explanation: Masse = mass, Dichte = density, Beziehung = relationship, Unkomprimierte Dichte = uncompressed density, Erde = Earth, Merkur = Mercury, Mond = Moon The dot that is extremely of the line formed by Mars, Earth and Venus, is Mercury, the dot nearer to the line is the Moon)

You can't say that Venus is unusual by comparing it to Earth. Earth's density is heavier than it should be because a lot of the lighter stuff ended up in the Moon.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Well, the mass of Venus is about 82% of the mass of the Earth. The Moon has only around 1.2% of the mass of the Earth. This doesn't add up, meaning, you need an additional explanation - which may be given by the diagram I posted before.