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The Inner Planets Mercury • • • • Small Weak gravitational force No atmosphere Many craters • Caloris Basin - one giant crater (1000 miles in diameter) • Many cliffs and peaks evidence of tectonic activity • Mean surface temp 442.5 K, ranges from 100 K to 700 K http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/ Keplers_Laws_fullscreen.mov Venus Earth’s sister planet • Covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid • Surface temperatures high enough to melt lead. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky • Orbits every 224.7 Earth days • Rotation is slow and retrograde, 243-day period • Time from one sunrise to the next is 117 Earth days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VenusAnimatio n.ogg • Radius is 95% of Earth's, and the density similar to Earth's, 80% • Liquid metal core similar to the Earth's Atmosphere • • • • Thick, high pressure (90 atm) Density 50 times greater than on Earth! Made of CO2, N, with sulfuric acid clouds Strong greenhouse effect Surface • 450°C (850°F) hot!! everywhere, always, including night time • Dry, dusty rocks, no water • May have had water in the past • Orange light, (atmosphere reflects mostly blue light) Phases of Venus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukPGqz4e_T Y&feature=related Mars • • • • • most ``earthlike'' 1/2 size of Earth 24h 37m day thin atmosphere of 95% CO2 much colder than Earth -- 187o K to 244o K (123o F to -20o F ) • atmospheric pressure 0.7% of Earth's (equivalent to 100,000 ft altitude on Earth) • tilted 25o ---> seasons • dust storms originally thought to be bands of vegetation ad irrigation canals built by Martians! • http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/160 67/Orson_Welles__War_Of_The_Worlds_Pt_2 _7/ • clouds, sediment layers, canyons, landslides, sand dunes, enormous young volcanos as tall as 78,000 ft (flyby 1 and flyby 2) • dry riverbeds (in older regions), evidence that liquid water once flowed • no water in liquid state now, all water frozen in ice caps/permafrost • The "Red Planet” iron oxide • Two moons, Phobos Deimos Surface features similar to Earth and the Moon Atmosphere • • • • Carbon dioxide 95.32% Nitrogen 2.7% Argon 1.6% Oxygen 0.13% Ice caps First fly-by • Mariner 3 (1965) • http://www.hulu.com/watch/63307/cosmosblues-for-a-red-planet