There’s less Mercury in the system.

Scientists found that Mercury, the solar system’s smallest planet, is shrinking far faster than previously believed, offering a never-before-seen window into the planet’s composition and history, per a study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

“We are approaching the reality of Mercury’s evolution,” the study’s lead author Gaku Nishiyama, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center Institute of Space Research, told AP in an email.

While this proverbial raisin in the sun has been contracting for 4.5 billion years — a result of the cooling process following its fiery birth — the rate of decline may be 30% more than previously thought.

This shrinkage amounts to as much as 14 miles, which is a significant loss given that Mercury only measures around 3,000 miles across — one third the width of Earth.

Understandably, studying the first rock from the Sun is no easy feat, as the entity is obscured by the blinding light from our home star. It’s also the second-hottest planet after Venus, reaching temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

Thankfully, scientists were able to use data from the Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft, which spent over four years orbiting the red hot rock, Time reported.

During that time, MESSENGER scientists were able to use the spacecraft’s scanners for special ridges known as shortening structures.

As the planet contracts, more of these formations crop up, much like wrinkles during aging.

Unfortunately, many of Mercury’s so-called wrinkles are obstructed by debris and craters from myriad asteroid impacts and other bombardments, making them difficult to count, the Scientific American reported.

To circumvent this, Nishiyama harvested two-dimensional pictures snapped by the MESSENGER’S dual-imaging system.

He then combined them so every portion of surveyed land was snapped twice, allowing the researchers to construct an uber-detailed map of the topography.

Scientists found that there far more of these spacely stretch, er, shrink-marks than previously believed, indicating the aforementioned degree of decline.

Nishiyama believes that tracing this Mercurial recession could help us glean better insight into what’s going on beneath the rocky crust and hopefully shed light on contraction in other planets.