Download Mercury - Dimensional Facts

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FactsWorld
• Mercury is the smallest
planet in our solar system,
with a diameter of 4879 km
• No moons orbit around
Mercury
• Closest to the Sun
• Virtually no atmosphere
• Least explored terrestrial
planet in our solar system
• Goes around the sun the
fastest of all the planets in
our solar system
• Mercury is the closest planet to
the Sun with a distance of 0.39
AU, or 57.91 million km
• Smallest planet
• It is not the hottest, Venus is
• This is because Mercury does
not have an atmosphere, while
Venus does
• Mercury has not been a
primary focus of many space
programs
• Mercury is 77 million km from
Earth
• In total, there have been two
spacecrafts that have visited
Mercury.
• Mercury was named Hermes by the ancient Greeks
• Hermes was the messenger of the gods, so he
moved very fast- Mercury appeared to move very
fast across the sky
• Later, some Greek astronomers got confused when
they saw Mercury on one side of the Sun in the
morning, and one the other side in the evening
• Therefore, some people thought Mercury were
two different stars. In the evening Mercury was
called Apollo, and Hermes, in the morning.
• The Romans later adopted the Greek god Hermes,
renaming him Mercurius, now called Mercury
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Timocharis, a Greek philosopher thought to have been born in Alexandria, Egypt, around
300 BC, was the first person to record his observations of Mercury.
Between 1609 and 1618, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler determined the orbital
motion of the planets, which calculated how the planets revolved around the Sun. This
discovery allowed Kepler to predict when and where Mercury would be in the sky, and also
when it would pass between the Sun and Earth, called a transit.
In 1639, astronomer Giovanni Zupus discovered Mercury has phases, like our moon.
In the later 1700s, Johann Hieronymus Schroeter was the first person to record details
about Mercury’s terrain. He said that Mercury might have an atmosphere, but however, his
findings proved not to be accurate.
German-born British astronomer Sir William Herschel was the first to make serious
telescopic observations of Mercury in the late eighteenth century.
Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli caused a great stir in astronomy by reporting
markings on Mars and Mercury in 1877. He called these canilis, or canals.
Schiaparelli’s work encouraged Percival Lowell to further investigate the canals on Mars
and Mercury.
A French astronomer in 1933 named Eugenios Antoniadi chartered the surface of Mercury
in the most detail at the time.
Here, as you can see, Mercury has been an important figure in the histories of many
civilizations and cultures.
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A year on Mercury would be 88 Earth days,
or 25% of an Earth year
Mercury’s days are very long
Since Mercury rotates very slowly, it takes
about 59 Earth days for Mercury to
complete one rotation.
To calculate your weight on Mercury,
multiply your weight in pounds by 0.38.
You wouldn’t be able to breathe- Mercury
has virtually no atmosphere- it’s very thin
atmosphere contains small amounts of
hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It also has
tiny amounts of sodium, potassium, calcium,
and magnesium.
Temperatures range from -173 Celsius at
night to 427 Celsius during the day
Mercury is one of the only two planets that
have magnetic fields. Although Mercury’s
magnetic field is weaker than Earth’s, you
could still use a compass when you get lost.
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Mercury has many craters, the surface of
Mercury closely resembles the Moon’s
This is because that since Mercury does not
have much of an atmosphere, asteroids
crash into Mercury at full impact
One of the largest impact craters in the solar
system is on Mercury, the Caloris Basin
The surface on Mercury is believed to be
geologically inactive now and for billion of
years
It is predicted that Mercury was heavily
bombarded by a lot of asteroids and comets
about 3.8 billion years ago
At the time, Mercury was volcanically active
and basins like the Caloris basin were filled
with magma.
Radar imaging of Mercury has shown that
there may be water on the planet.
The inside walls of the deep craters at
Mercury’s north pole never see daylight,
which may allow water to exist
If water is found, it is probably from comets
carrying ice which have made contact with
the planet
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Mercury is made up of three layers- the crust,
the mantle, and the core
The crust is the outside layer of the planet. It is
made up of solid rock. Most of it can be up to
4.2 billion years old, burying any craters from
meteorite impacts before that time.
The mantle is under the crust. It is about 560
km thick. Scientists believe that Mercury’s
mantle is made up of silicate materials, that is,
materials that are made up of the element
silicon and other elements, such as aluminum or
iron
The core, the center of the planet, is mostly iron
(about 65%). However, there are also small
traces of nickel. It is predicted that the core is
molten. Mercury’s core is about 3700 km
around. This layer actually makes up most of the
planet, and in relation to the size of the core
and the size of the planet, Mercury’s core is
larger than any other planet’s core in our solar
system.
Mercury is actually the second dense planet in
our solar system (Earth is first)
Description
Mariner 10
•NASA launched Mariner 10 on November 3,
1973
•It was the tenth and the only one out of ten
to go to Mercury
•Three months later, the spacecraft reached
Venus, and after taking pictures of Venus,
moved onto Mercury
•It flew past Mercury twice, one in 1974 and
1975, with a gap of six months between each
flyby.
•Only about 45% of Mercury was
photographed because every time Mariner
returned, the same side was in the dark
•The mission ended on March 24, 1975
MESSENGER
•MESSENGER stands for MErcury Surface,
Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and
Ranging.
•The probe was launched on August 3, 2004
•This probe was hoped to collect more
information about Mercury
•After two flybys, the spacecraft orbited
Mercury
•Enough data was collected to produce
images of over 95% of its surface
•Mission ended on April 30, 2015, when
MESSENGER was allowed to crash land after a
decaying orbit
Image
Both used “gravity
slingshots”- use
of the relative
movement and
gravity of a planet
to alter the speed
and path of a
spacecraft.
The planets they
used as slingshots
were Earth and
Venus- it helped
them save
propellant, time,
and expense
• BepiColombo will be
Europe’s first mission to
Mercury.
• It is set to launch in 2017
• BepiColombo is expected
to provide the best
information about
Mercury to date
• The mission comprises
two spacecraft: the
Mercury Planetary Orbiter
(MPO) and the Mercury
Magnetospheric Orbiter
(MMO)
• When Mercury and Earth are at their closest
in their orbits, they are 77 million km apart
• Traveling to Mercury by rocket at 11 km per
second, the trip would take at least 79 days
• Mercury’s sunshine is six times brighter than
it is on Earth because of its close distance to
the Sun
• Light from the Sun takes only about three
minutes to reach Mercury, while on Earth it is
eight
• Boekhoff, P. M., and Stuart A. Kallen. Mercury. San Diego, Calif.:
Kidhaven, 2003. Print.
• Croce, Carlo P. Mercury. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 2005. Print.
• Goss, Tim. Mercury. Place of Publication Not Identified: Heinemann
Raintree, 2002. Print.
• Dunbar, Brian. NASA. NASA. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasaknows/what-is-planet-mercury-k4.html>.
• "Mercury - Astronomy For Kids - KidsAstronomy.com." Mercury Astronomy For Kids - KidsAstronomy.com. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.kidsastronomy.com/mercury.htm>.
• "ESA." BepiColombo. Web. <sci.esa.int/bepicolombo/>.
• "Exploration of Mercury." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 15
Nov. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mercury>.