A new report revealed that the smallest planet, Mercury, is getting smaller at a rate faster than Moon and Mars. This discovery could help provide additional information on future planetary studies by closely monitoring the changes in this small planet.

Mercury is the closest and smallest planet to the Sun. Its surface displays the greatest temperature changes among all planets in the Solar System due to the absence of atmosphere that can retain heat. It is mainly composed of iron.

Scientists have long-acknowledged that all planets cool down and shed heat to different degrees. A huge drop in temperature can cause a planet to downsize. However, the recorded downsizing of Mercury caught the interest of researchers.

Upon review of images taken by the NASA Mariner 10 spacecraft, the researchers found that Mercury is now 8.6 miles, or 14 kilometers, smaller in diameter compared to its recorded size four billion years ago.

They also found that because of the planet's shrinkage, its cratered complexion formed cliffs that can soar up to two miles, or three kilometers, high. Long chains of ridges of about 1,050 miles, or 1,700 kilometers, in the surface of the planet were also formed.

"We see the landscape literally crumpling up," said William McKinnon, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, to National Geographic. "Massive slabs of rock are sliding over one another."

The formation of these cliffs and ridges suggest that a sudden and violent shaking of the ground, which sometimes lead to great destruction, has occurred in the planet.

A similar surface setting was also observed on the surface of Mars and on Earth's moon. However, the process that took place in Mercury is different from the other two extraterrestrial objects.

"Mercury is anomalous because it seems to have shrunk much more in size than the moon or Mars," said study lead researcher Paul Byrne, a planetary geologist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, to National Geographic.

Further details of this study can be read in the March 17 issue of Nature Geoscience.