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Explore a fascinating conference talk by Matt Clement from Carnegie Institution that delves into the mysterious origins of Mercury, presented as part of the "Planets on the Edge" KITP conference held at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara in May 2025. Learn about how discoveries from missions like Kepler and TESS relate to our understanding of short-period orbiting planets around other stars, particularly Earth-sized rocky planets that have no direct counterparts in our Solar System. The presentation addresses key questions about close-in rocky planets: their nature and atmospheres, formation processes, governing parameters across star systems, and why similar planets don't exist around our Sun. This 36-minute talk contributes to the broader conference goal of synthesizing knowledge about planets and inner disks, advancing planet formation models, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to chart future directions in observations, theory, and computational modeling.
