Iron Memes

The ultimate planetary misnomer! Mercury got its name from the Roman god of speed (and his liquid metal namesake) because it zooms around the Sun so fast—completing an orbit in just 88 Earth days. But plot twist: despite being named after quicksilver (mercury), the planet is actually a dense iron core with a thin rocky crust! It's like naming your pet turtle "Cheetah" or your rock collection "Clouds." The cosmic irony is that Mercury's core makes up about 85% of its radius, making it proportionally the most iron-rich planet in our solar system. Scientists suspect Mercury lost its outer layers in a massive collision billions of years ago, leaving behind this metallic heart with serious identity issues.

The cosmic terror is real! Massive stars casually fuse hydrogen through silicon without breaking a sweat, but when they reach iron, it's game over. Iron fusion actually consumes energy instead of releasing it, causing the star's core to collapse catastrophically within seconds. The resulting supernova explosion is basically the stellar equivalent of "I've made a terrible mistake." The universe's most dramatic energy crisis happens because iron's nucleus is too stable—it's literally too perfect to participate in the stellar fusion party.