One of Mercury's youngest impact basin, Rachmaninoff, is only about a billion years old. Mercury. The difficulty in seeing it notwithstanding, Mercury was known at least by Sumerian times, some 5,000 years ago. Because of its enormous core, Mercury is shrinking. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. [92], At certain points on Mercury's surface, an observer would be able to see the Sun peek up a little more than two-thirds of the way over the horizon, then reverse and set before rising again, all within the same Mercurian day. The first of two spacecraft to visit the planet was Mariner 10, which mapped about 45% of its surface from 1974 to 1975. The discovery suggests that Mercury remained active well after its birth. Mercury attains inferior conjunction (nearest approach to Earth) every 116 Earth days on average,[3] but this interval can range from 105 days to 129 days due to the planet's eccentric orbit. The Sun's total angular displacement during its apparent retrograde motion as seen from the surface of Mercury is ~1.23°, while the Sun's angular diameter when the apparent retrograde motion begins and ends is ~1.71°, increasing to ~1.73° at perihelion (midway through the retrograde motion). If the planet formed quickly, increasing temperatures of the evolving sun could have vaporized much of the existing surface, leaving only a thin shell. Mercury is the planet of communication and it symbolises areas related to commerce, trade, accounts, banking, mobile, networking, computers and so on. [176][177], On March 24, 1975, just eight days after its final close approach, Mariner 10 ran out of fuel. [f][130] Babylonian records of Mercury date back to the 1st millennium BC. [100][101] The center of Hun Kal defines the 20° west meridian. The planet was named for the Roman god Mercury, a winged messenger, and it travels around the Sun faster than any other planet. Mercury is the first planet from the sun in the solar system. 1 The eccentricity of Mercury's orbit makes this resonance stable—at perihelion, when the solar tide is strongest, the Sun is nearly still in Mercury's sky. Mercury can come as near as 82.2 gigametres (0.549 astronomical units; 51.1 million miles) to Earth, and that is slowly declining: The next approach to within 82.1 Gm (51.0 million miles) is in 2679, and to within 82.0 Gm (51.0 million miles) in 4487, but it will not be closer to Earth than 80 Gm (50 million miles) until 28,622. Please refresh the page and try again. Dietary Vitamin E can … Dec. 26, 1974: Salyut 4 space station launches into orbit. The equator is defined relative to the planet's poles. The crater stretches about 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) across the planet's surface and is surrounded by a ring of mountains 1.2 miles (2 km) tall. Ground-based telescope observations of Mercury reveal only an illuminated partial disk with limited detail. The thin atmosphere allows most cosmic rays to bombard the planet, stripping neutrons from elements lying on the surface. [121][122], Nonetheless, the brightest (full phase) appearance of Mercury is an essentially impossible time for practical observation, because of the extreme proximity of the Sun. These points, which are the ones on the equator where the apparent retrograde motion of the Sun happens when it is crossing the horizon as described in the preceding paragraph, receive much less solar heat than the first ones described above. They determined that the rocky world has "mascons," massive gravitational concentrations associated with large impact basins. The Moon and Mercury May Have Thick Ice Deposits Our solar system is a stormy place. 2 Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". Mercury can be observed for only a brief period during either morning or evening twilight. 10+ Things: Tour of Storms Across the Solar System As the inner core grows, it provides the energy behind Earth's magnetic field. 6.5 is the ideal pH level. The most obvious reason why Mercury isn’t the hottest planet in our solar system is due to its lack of an atmosphere. These observations were most likely made by an Assyrian astronomer around the 14th century BC. Mercury's core has more iron than any other planet in the solar system. Holy cow! The first orbital image of Mercury was obtained on March 29, 2011. This large range arises from the planet's high orbital eccentricity. ) [156][157][158] Three years later, radar observations by Americans Gordon H. Pettengill and Rolf B. Dyce, using the 300-meter Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, showed conclusively that the planet's rotational period was about 59 days. "MUL" is a cuneiform sign that was used in the Sumerian language to designate a star or planet, but it is not considered part of the actual name. [68] Water ice strongly reflects radar, and observations by the 70-meter Goldstone Solar System Radar and the VLA in the early 1990s revealed that there are patches of high radar reflection near the poles. Friedrich Bessel used Schröter's drawings to erroneously estimate the rotation period as 24 hours and an axial tilt of 70°. 3 Theses are produced by internal processes on the planet plus contributions from the solar wind. The observation demonstrated conclusively that Mercury orbited around the Sun. A trip to Mercury requires more rocket fuel than that required to escape the Solar System completely. Although mercury and its compounds are toxic substances, there is ongoing debate about exactly how toxic they are. This was thought to explain Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance (rather than the more usual 1:1), because this state is more likely to arise during a period of high eccentricity. Due to Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, a solar day (the length between two meridian transits of the Sun) lasts about 176 Earth days. Filling in the values gives a result of 0.1035 arcseconds per revolution or 0.4297 arcseconds per Earth year, i.e., 42.97 arcseconds per century. [70], The icy regions are estimated to contain about 1014–1015 kg of ice,[71] and may be covered by a layer of regolith that inhibits sublimation. "These were first discovered on the moon in 1968 and caused great problems in the Apollo program because they tugged low-orbiting spacecraft around and made navigation difficult," Zuber said. NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Whom Does Mercury Help? Measurements of changes in the probe's orbital velocity were expected to be used to infer details of the planet's interior structure. [169] A proposed alternative approach would use a solar sail to attain a Mercury-synchronous orbit around the Sun. Mercury Closest Approaches to Earth generated with: Davies, M. E., "Surface Coordinates and Cartography of Mercury," Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. [84], It is likely that this magnetic field is generated by a dynamo effect, in a manner similar to the magnetic field of Earth. Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, has almost no atmosphere, and its dusty surface of craters resembles the Moon. In the other alternate Mercurian years, the same thing happens at the other of these two points. [188], The European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency developed and launched a joint mission called BepiColombo, which will orbit Mercury with two probes: one to map the planet and the other to study its magnetosphere. This coming together most likely happened as the interior cooled. [159][160] The theory that Mercury's rotation was synchronous had become widely held, and it was a surprise to astronomers when these radio observations were announced. In the diagram the varying distance of Mercury to the Sun is represented by the size of the planet, which is inversely proportional to Mercury's distance from the Sun. [134] The Romans named the planet after the swift-footed Roman messenger god, Mercury (Latin Mercurius), which they equated with the Greek Hermes, because it moves across the sky faster than any other planet. The MESSENGER observations showed the reconnection rate is ten times higher at Mercury, but its proximity to the Sun only accounts for about a third of the reconnection rate observed by MESSENGER. As if Mercury isn’t small enough. [112], The perihelion precession of Mercury is 5,600 arcseconds (1.5556°) per century relative to Earth, or 574.10±0.65 arcseconds per century[113] relative to the inertial ICRF. Mercury is the first planet from the sun in the solar system. [144] The Maya may have represented Mercury as an owl (or possibly four owls; two for the morning aspect and two for the evening) that served as a messenger to the underworld. After the Earth, Mercury is the second densest planet. It is important to be clear about the meaning of 'closeness'. [185][186][187] The spacecraft's impact with Mercury occurred near 3:26 PM EDT on April 30, 2015, leaving a crater estimated to be 16 m (52 ft) in diameter. This made close observation of both sides of the planet impossible,[173] and resulted in the mapping of less than 45% of the planet's surface. Mercury is best observed at the first and last quarter, although they are phases of lesser brightness. [104], The rare 3:2 resonant tidal locking is stabilized by the variance of the tidal force along Mercury's eccentric orbit, acting on a permanent dipole component of Mercury's mass distribution. With growing concern over the health of the seas, people are turning to sardines for the essential nutrients found in fish. The field is quite active, frequently interacting with the solar wind and funneling plasma from the sun to the planet's surface. [123], The earliest known recorded observations of Mercury are from the Mul.Apin tablets. Mercury - Mercury - Surface composition: Messenger used X-ray fluorescence spectra to study the surface composition of Mercury. To land safely or enter a stable orbit the spacecraft would rely entirely on rocket motors. CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2020 (. With a radius of 1,516 miles (2,440 kilometers), Mercury is a little more than 1/3 the width of Earth. The planet is rendered invisible from Earth on both of these occasions because of its being obscured by the Sun,[119] except its new phase during a transit. [189] Launched on October 20, 2018, BepiColombo is expected to reach Mercury in 2025. [161], Italian astronomer Giuseppe Colombo noted that the rotation value was about two-thirds of Mercury's orbital period, and proposed that the planet's orbital and rotational periods were locked into a 3:2 rather than a 1:1 resonance. Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets and is closest to the sun. "We interpret these plains to be the youngest volcanic deposits we have yet found on Mercury," MESSENGER deputy project scientist Louise Prockter, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in 2010. The troughs, up to 2 kilometers wide, crosscut the outer ridge ring. [111] (Other explanations considered included a slight oblateness of the Sun.) [175] At the first close approach, instruments detected a magnetic field, to the great surprise of planetary geologists—Mercury's rotation was expected to be much too slow to generate a significant dynamo effect. ( If you need a filling, make sure your dentist does not use this toxic substance. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun At a distance of only about 1/3 of Earth’s distance to Sun, Mercury is the first planet in our Solar System. Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the solar system, and was a mysterious world until NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft became the first probe to orbit Mercury in 2011. Thus, to a hypothetical observer on Mercury, the Sun appears to move in a retrograde direction. [24] Essentially because Mercury is closest to the Sun, when taking an average over time, Mercury is the closest planet to the Earth,[97] and - in that measure - it is the closest planet to each of the other planets in the Solar System. [151] The next occultation of Mercury by Venus will be on December 3, 2133. [81] Unlike Earth's, Mercury's poles are nearly aligned with the planet's spin axis. a 2 [24] Unlike Earth or Venus, it has almost no atmosphere at all, having long been blown away by the solar wind. If Mercury’s early volatiles did include water or ice – something still unknown – then conceivably the planet could have had habitable niches in its subsurface. This allows the planet to be found easily, even when using telescopes with 8 cm (3.1 in) apertures. According to measurements taken by Mariner 10, it is about 1.1% the strength of Earth's. Therefore, a small crater further west was chosen, called Hun Kal, which provides the exact reference point for measuring longitude. Mercury’s Neighbors. [103], For many years it was thought that Mercury was synchronously tidally locked with the Sun, rotating once for each orbit and always keeping the same face directed towards the Sun, in the same way that the same side of the Moon always faces Earth. NASA Science Solar System Exploration. Radar images taken from Earth revealed that the core is molten liquid, rather than solid. A small body like Mercury would have a difficult time holding on to an atmosphere in the best of circumstances. Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets and is closest to the sun. The Chinese and Sinoxenic cultures know the planet as the "water star" after one of the Five Elements. A strong Mercury signifies success in the above-mentioned areas. Get help with your The planet Mercury homework. [184] MESSENGER's final maneuver was on April 24, 2015, and it crashed into Mercury's surface on April 30, 2015. A Mercury-bound spacecraft launched from Earth must travel over 91 million kilometres (57 million miles) into the Sun's gravitational potential well. [76][77], Sodium, potassium and calcium were discovered in the atmosphere during the 1980–1990s, and are thought to result primarily from the vaporization of surface rock struck by micrometeorite impacts[78] including presently from Comet Encke. For example, essentially because Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus, Mercury spends more time in proximity to Earth; it could, therefore, be said that Mercury is the planet that is 'closest to Earth when averaged over time'. Television and film writers, too, have found the planet an ideal location for storytelling. [29], Mercury's magnetic field is strong enough to deflect the solar wind around the planet, creating a magnetosphere. Although temperatures on the planet can reach as high as 801 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius), MESSENGER detected water-ice on its surface in the shaded portions of some of the polar craters, where the sun doesn't reach. Hydrogen atoms and helium atoms probably come from the solar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space. The toxicity of mercury depends on the form of mercury to which people are exposed. For many years after the Mariner 10 encounters, the origin of Mercury's magnetic field remained the subject of several competing theories. its orbit appears vertical) and is at maximum elongation from the Sun (28°) and also when the Sun is 18° below the horizon, so the sky is just completely dark. 2 What type of food and water and shelter does Mercury have? [24] A sidereal day (the period of rotation) lasts about 58.7 Earth days. [14] This exosphere is not stable—atoms are continuously lost and replenished from a variety of sources. c It is the second densest planet of the Solar System, but also the smallest planet.The structure of Mercury makes it the most similar planet to Earth. It found a high ratio of magnesium to silicon and low ratios of aluminum and calcium to silicon, which showed that the crust was not rich in feldspar like that of the Moon. [128], Because the shift of 0.15 revolutions in a year makes up a seven-year cycle (0.15 × 7 ≈ 1.0), in the seventh year Mercury follows almost exactly (earlier by 7 days) the sequence of phenomena it showed seven years before. Mercury, much like the winged messenger of the gods, comes in on feather-light wings and commands us to speak. [90], Mercury's axial tilt is almost zero,[91] with the best measured value as low as 0.027 degrees. Mercury's iron core generates a magnetic field about one percent as strong as Earth's. Due to the high mercury levels in most fish, the savvy Modern Paleo dieter should pass on mercury-toxic larger fish and eat low mercury sardines! Such an impact could have stripped away much of its outer shell, leaving a core too big for remaining planet. The smallest planet in the solar system, Mercury bears a strong resemblance to Earth's moon. The naming convention is a consequence of ancient people thinking there is an astrological link between metals and the heavens. According to NASA, the atmosphere of Mercury is a " surface-bound exosphere, essentially a vacuum." [108], Numerical simulations show that a future secular orbital resonant perihelion interaction with Jupiter may cause the eccentricity of Mercury's orbit to increase to the point where there is a 1% chance that the planet will collide with Venus within the next five billion years. Mercury: The Planet of Communication. the semi-major axis, and It is said that Mercury was formed about 5 billion years back. In astronomy, the words "rotation" and "revolution" have different meanings. But the planet has its own differences. [143] The god Odin (or Woden) of Germanic paganism was associated with the planet Mercury and Wednesday. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system. This core is surrounded by a rocky mantle and crust about 600km thick. All solid planets & moons have the same general chemical makeup, so nutrients are present. Because of this, it's tempting to think of Mercury's exosphere as just the battered remains of ancient atmosphere. Really, though, the exosphere is constantly changing and being renewed with sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and other species that are liberated from Mercury's soil … With a radius of 1,100 to 1,200 mile (1,800 to 1,900 km), the core makes up about 85 percent of the planet's radius. Mercury does not have a moon. It is approximately 35.98 million miles from the sun, and 1,516 miles in radius. [139] Modern Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cultures refer to the planet literally as the "water star" (水星), based on the Five elements. Thank you for signing up to Space. They provided the first views that resolved surface features on the parts of Mercury that were not imaged in the Mariner 10 mission. 1. … Access the answers to hundreds of The planet Mercury questions that are explained in a way that's easy for you to understand. Aside from being the first planet, Mercury is also the smallest of the planets with a mean diameter of about 4,880 km. Water vapor is present, released by a combination of processes such as: comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water out of hydrogen from the solar wind and oxygen from rock, and sublimation from reservoirs of water ice in the permanently shadowed polar craters. 24 Radar observations in 1965 proved that the planet has a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, rotating three times for every two revolutions around the Sun. [180] A first fly-by of Mercury occurred on January 14, 2008, a second on October 6, 2008,[181] and a third on September 29, 2009. Mercury is 10° above the horizon when the planet appears directly above the Sun (i.e. Although he observed phases when he looked at Venus, his telescope was not powerful enough to see the phases of Mercury. [71], Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; it does have a tenuous surface-bounded exosphere[73] containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium and others at a surface pressure of less than approximately 0.5 nPa (0.005 picobars). This method bypasses the limitation of twilight observing when the ecliptic is located at a low elevation (e.g. According to Kargel: Mercury and Venus occult each other every few centuries, and the event of May 28, 1737 is the only one historically observed, having been seen by John Bevis at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In modern times Mercury does not have a common nickname (not like Mars which is often called The Red Planet). The spacecraft encountered magnetic "tornadoes" – twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting the planetary magnetic field to interplanetary space – that were up to 800 km wide or a third of the radius of the planet. Scores of science fiction writers have been inspired by Mercury, including Isaac Asimov, C. S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and H. P. Lovecraft. [153], Ground-based optical observations did not shed much further light on Mercury, but radio astronomers using interferometry at microwave wavelengths, a technique that enables removal of the solar radiation, were able to discern physical and chemical characteristics of the subsurface layers to a depth of several meters. Moreover, recent technological advances have led to improved ground-based observations. The gravity pulled the dust particles and various gases in one place and formed this little planet called Mercury. It is "new" at inferior conjunction and "full" at superior conjunction. "Revolution" is motion around a centre that is external to the body, usually in orbit, as in "Earth takes a year for each revolution around the Sun." [64][c], Despite its small size and slow 59-day-long rotation, Mercury has a significant, and apparently global, magnetic field. [24], Simulations indicate that the orbital eccentricity of Mercury varies chaotically from nearly zero (circular) to more than 0.45 over millions of years due to perturbations from the other planets. "For sure we have not observed an active eruption or extrusion.". When NASA's MESSENGER orbiter visited the planet in 2008, it became the first spacecraft to glimpse the full spread of the Caloris basin, one of the biggest and youngest impact features in the solar system. The smallest planet in our solar system has a big presence in our collective imagination. NY 10036. It has a large metallic core having a radius of about 2000km, that’s about 85% of planets diameter. The (290-km) diameter peak-ring impact basin has smooth plains on its floor suggestive of lava flows. Once you have added your nutrients, let them settle for a couple of hours before checking your pH levels. The planet Mercury doesn't have rings. As a result, transits of Mercury across the face of the Sun can only occur when the planet is crossing the plane of the ecliptic at the time it lies between Earth and the Sun, which is in May or November. The Hebrews named it Kokhav Hamah, "star of the hot one" ("the hot one" being the Sun). However, accurate modeling based on a realistic model of tidal response has demonstrated that Mercury was captured into the 3:2 spin-orbit state at a very early stage of its history, within 20 (more likely, 10) million years after its formation. At both of these times Mercury's separation from the Sun ranges anywhere from 17.9° at perihelion to 27.8° at aphelion. This is in close agreement with the accepted value of Mercury's perihelion advance of 42.98 arcseconds per century. Mercury is technically brightest as seen from Earth when it is at a full phase. Yes. Earth’s Moon and Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, may contain significantly more water ice than previously thought. It has an iron core and a silicate mantle and crust, though it likely contains some small amount of the eponymous element. Maximum temperature occurs when the Sun is at an angle of about 25 degrees past noon due to diurnal temperature lag, at 0.4 Mercury days and 0.8 Mercury years past sunrise. This varying distance to the Sun leads to Mercury's surface being flexed by tidal bulges raised by the Sun that are about 17 times stronger than the Moon's on Earth. With only the most negligible of atmospheres, the temperatures on the night and day side differ dramatically. [102] The two hottest places on the equator are therefore at longitudes 0° W and 180° W, and the coolest points on the equator are at longitudes 90° W and 270° W. However, the MESSENGER project uses an east-positive convention. This methyl mercury then works it’s way up the (sea)food chain. [24][106] The diagram illustrates the effects of the eccentricity, showing Mercury's orbit overlaid with a circular orbit having the same semi-major axis. You will receive a verification email shortly. Since Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, spins slowly, and does not have much of an atmosphere to trap heat, its temperature varies greatly. Mercury: The closest planet to our sun, Mercury is a terrestrial planet like Earth or Venus. The whole thing is likely covered by a solid shell of iron and sulfur, creating a layering effect not known to exist on the other terrestrial planets. 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