Mercury Essay, Research Paper

Mercury

Mercury is the second smallest planet in the solar system and is closest and innermost planet to the sun. Did you know that the sun warms Mercury? It is 36 million miles from the sun and takes 88 days to circle it, and Mercury takes 59 Earth days to spin once on its axis. But Mercury does not have any gases. Mercury is very hot in its surface, the temperatures range from: 430 degrees Celsius through 130 degrees Celsius.

There is a lot of history based on Mercury; Mercury is visible with a telescope, and with the naked eye. Mercury seems to have been dead for the past 4 billion years, like the Moon. Until the 1970’s when the Mariner was launched, scientists did not know much about the sun-scorched planet. Mercury’s early history and evolution is still trying to be figured out. It has been observed in 1974 when Mariner 10 was launched. This mission sent this spacecraft to Venus, and then Venus’ gravity directed it towards Mercury. It passed by Mercury 3 times and returned the first close images, which helped scientists to discover more. In 1975 the Mariner had ten

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Pictures that reveal a moon-like surface in Mercury. Mercury is also a terrestrial planet Uranus, Earth, and Mars are also terrestrial planets. It is made of a solid surface and has a hot core.

There is also a lot of geology based on Mercury. Its surface is covered with craters some extremely large stricter. Also on the face of mercury lies the Caloris Basin that is 812 miles across, this is about the size of Alaska. Mercury does not have rings, or gas like the gas giants of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Most of Mercury is covered with ancient craters and is very rocky. The northern polar region consists of smooth plains. Mercury might have had craters from volcanoes along time ago.

Mercury has a slow rotation and does not have a liquid metal core, but it still has a magnetic field. The field is weak, but strong enough to deflect solar winds and create a small magnetosphere.

Here are some interesting facts about Mercury. Mercury has no moons or satellites. Its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium and sodium. The diameter of two and a half Mercury’s equals one Earth. Its mass and volume are 0.06 the times of Earths.

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In 1880, Galileo, an Italian astronomer, studied Mercury by telescope. Mercury is very visible to the naked eye and can be seen during the nighttime hours. One of the chief problems with studding this planet is that it can never be seen against a completely dark back ground because it remains in the same part of the sky as the sun. It rises just before the Sun does, and falls before the Sunsets. In 1974, pictures from the Mariner confirm, Craters Mountains and no life on mercury. Around 1940-1941 a long telescope study of Mercury led to fairly inaccurate maps and a belief that Mercury has clouds, which was proved wrong in 1963.

Bibliography

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