"Mercury—of the nine known planets of our solar system, it is the closest to the sun. It is also one of the smallest, only Pluto (the furthermost) being smaller. Even Ganymede (a moon of Jupiter) and Titan (a moon of Saturn) are bigger. Yet, tiny Mercury has much to say about the origins of our solar system.
Mercury is a planet of extremes. The side of the planet that faces the sun reaches a temperature of about 430°C (more than enough to melt lead), while the dark side is a frigid –170°. Mercury revolves around the sun every 88 days, and has the unusual characteristic of rotating on its axis exactly three times for every two complete orbits.
Much of our information about Mercury comes from the Mariner 10 fly-by of 1974–75. Lacking the variety and color of some other planets, Mercury’s rocky, cratered surface resembles the moon’s. But what is really interesting about Mercury are the things that can’t be seen.
Scientists have discovered that Mercury has the highest density of all the known planets (other than Earth). Mercury is so dense that it’s thought to have an iron core occupying some 75% of its diameter. This extraordinary density has generated much turmoil and confusion in evolutionary astronomy. Evolutionists mostly agree on models of planetary formation … but their models say Mercury can’t be anywhere near as dense as it actually is.
After decades of struggle, most astrophysicists today have given up and admitted that Mercury’s high density cannot be accommodated within slow-and-gradual-development models.
Instead, the preferred explanation now is that billions of years ago, a large object crashed into Mercury, stripping away its lesser-density material, and leaving behind the high-density planet seen today.
Consider the implications of this. Evolutionists have admitted that the planet that we see today cannot be explained by gradual evolutionary processes! This is a stunning admission. Instead, they propose a long-ago catastrophic collision. What is the evidence for this collision? Only that Mercury would otherwise disprove evolution!
Over and over again in astronomy, cosmic collisions are invoked as a sort of magic wand to rescue evolutionary theories from the facts. The planet Uranus is tilted over, but evolution says it can’t be—therefore, long ago something hit it and knocked it over. Venus’s rotation contradicts evolutionary predictions—therefore, long ago something hit it and spun it round the opposite way.
Mars’ atmosphere is too thin for evolutionist tastes—therefore, it used
to be thicker, but long ago something hit Mars and stripped most of it
away. Mercury is too dense for evolution—therefore, long ago something
hit it and conveniently removed the lighter parts. Evolutionists wave
their collision-wand at will, and yet mock as ‘unscientific’ the
Christian belief in a one-off catastrophic global Flood, despite the
abundant physical and historical evidence for it." CMI
