Mercury Planet

 Mercury

  The smallest and closest planet to the sun

   Scott Dutfield Contributions by Daisy Dobrejok by Charles Kyu Choi Posted March 31, 2022

   Mercury orbits the Sun faster than any other planet in the solar system.

 Marcury

   Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest planet in our solar system.  The small planet has no moon of its own and revolves around the sun faster than any other planet, so the Romans named it after their fast-moving messenger god.

  

   The Sumerians also knew about Mercury at least 5,000 years ago.  According to a site linked to NASA's Messenger (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) mission, it was often associated with the writing god Naboo.  Mercury was also given different names to appear as the morning star and the evening star.  However, Greek astronomers knew that the two names refer to the same body, and Heraclitus, about 500 BC, correctly thought that both Mercury and Venus revolved around the Sun, not the Earth.

   Mercury is the second densest planet after Earth, with a huge metal core about 2,200 to 2,400 miles (3,600 to 3,800 km) wide, or about 75% of the planet's diameter.  In contrast, Mercury's outer shell is only 300 to 400 miles (500 to 600 kilometers) thick.  Its massive combination of basic and structural elements, including a plethora of volatile elements, has puzzled scientists for years.

   Related: What is Mercury Made of?

   Mercury: Temperature, size and surface activity

   Because the planet is so close to the Sun, Mercury's surface temperature can reach 840 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius).  However, since there is no more real atmosphere in the world to trap any heat, nighttime temperatures can drop to minus 275 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 170 degrees Celsius), which is 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600).  Degrees Celsius).  , The largest in the solar system.

  

  

   - Mercury-linked spacecraft takes selfie with Venus on fly-by (photo)

   Mercury is the smallest planet - it is slightly larger than the Earth's moon.  Since there is no significant environment to prevent the effects, there is a mark of pits on the planet.  About 4 billion years ago, an asteroid about 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide collided with Mercury, which weighed 1 trillion megatons of bombs, producing a massive impact about 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) wide.  Known as the Calories Basin, this crater could engulf the entire state of Texas.  According to a 2011 study, another major effect may have been to create a bizarre cycle of the planet.

   As close to the sun as Mercury is, in 2012, NASA's Messenger spacecraft discovered water ice in pits around its North Pole in 2017, where areas could be permanently shaded by the sun's heat.  The South Pole may have icy pockets, but Messenger's orbit did not allow scientists to investigate the area.  Comets or meteors may have brought ice to the area, or water vapor may have come out of the interior of the planet and accumulated on poles.

    35,983,095 miles (57,909,175 km).  By comparison: 0.38 Distance from the sun to the earth

   Perry Helen (closest view to the sun): 28,580,000 miles (46,000,000 km).  By comparison: 0.313 times the Earth

   Aphelion (farthest distance from the sun): 43,380,000 miles (69,820,000 km).  By comparison: 0.459 times the Earth

   Length of day: 58.646 Earth days

   Color: Gray

   As if Mercury is not so small, it has not only shrunk in its past but is shrinking even today, according to a 2016 report.  This small planet is made up of a single continental plate on a cooling iron core.  As the core cools, it hardens, reducing the size of the planet and shrinking it.  The process crushed the surface, creating lob-shaped spots or rocks that grew hundreds of miles long and up to a mile high, as well as the "Great Valley" of Mercury, which is about 620 miles long and 250 miles wide.  And two miles deep.  (1,000 x 400 x 3.2 km) Larger than Arizona's famous Grand Canyon and deeper than the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.

   "The small age of the small spots means that Mercury joins the Earth tectonically as an active planet, which is likely to cause new defects today as Mercury's interior is getting colder and the planet is shrinking.  "Tom Waters, Smithsonian's senior scientist at the National Air and Space Museum.  Washington DC said in a NASA statement.

   In fact, a 2016 study of rocks on the surface of Mercury suggested that the Earth could still vibrate with earthquakes, or "Mercury Earthquakes."  Also, in the past, Mercury's surface has been constantly changing from volcanic activity.  However, another 2016 study suggested that the possibility of Mercury's volcanic eruption had disappeared about 3.5 billion years ago.

   A 2016 study suggested that the properties of Mercury's surface could generally be divided into two groups - an old material that melts at high pressure on the core mantle boundary, and a new material that mercury  Forms close to the surface.  Another 2016 study found that the black color of Mercury's surface is due to carbon.  This carbon was not accumulated by influencing comets, as some researchers suspect - instead, it could be the remnants of the planet's early crust.

   Mercury's magnetic field

   The most unexpected discovery by Mariner 10 was that Mercury has a magnetic field.  Planets theoretically create magnetic fields only when they rotate rapidly and have a molten core.  But Mercury takes 59 days to orbit and is so small - about one-third the size of Earth - that its center should have cooled long ago.

   Christopher Russell, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "We figured out how the Earth works, and Mercury is another terrestrial, rocky planet with an iron core, so we thought it might look like this.  Will work  Statement from the University of California, Los Angeles.

   An unusual inner part can help explain the difference in Mercury's magnetic field compared to Earth.  Messenger's observations show that the planet's magnetic field is about three times stronger in its northern hemisphere than in the south.  Russell co-authored a model that shows that Mercury's iron core is changing from liquid to solid at the outer boundary of the core, rather than internally.

   "It's like a blizzard with snow forming above and in the middle of the clouds, and below the clouds," Russell said.  "Our study of Mercury's magnetic field shows that ice is falling on iron in this fluid, which is strengthening Mercury's magnetic field."

   Earth-based radar observations in 2007 discovered that Mercury's center is still molten, which could help explain its magnetism, although solar wind could play a role in reducing the planet's magnetic field.

   Although Mercury's magnetic field is only 1% of the Earth's strength, it is very active.  The magnetic field in the solar wind - charged particles coming out of the sun - occasionally touches the field of Mercury, creating powerful magnetic storms that carry the fast, warm plasma of the solar wind to the planet's surface.

   Is there an atmosphere of Mercury?

   Instead of a substantial atmosphere, Mercury has an extremely thin "exposure" made up of atoms that have been blown from its surface by solar radiation, solar wind and micrometroid effects.  According to NASA, these particles form a tail and quickly escape into space.

   Mercury's atmosphere is a "surface-connected outer sphere, essentially a space."  According to NASA, it contains 42% oxygen, 29% sodium, 22% hydrogen, 6% helium, 0.5% potassium, and contains potential amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, xenon, krypton and neon.

   Mercury's orbit

   Mercury orbits the Sun every 88 Earth days, traveling in space at a speed of about 112,000 miles per hour (180,000 kilometers per hour), faster than any other planet.  Its elliptical orbit is extremely elliptical, moving Mercury closer to 29 million miles (47 million kilometers) and 43 million miles (70 million kilometers) from the Sun.  If one could stand on Mercury when it is closest to the sun, it would appear to be three times larger than the Earth.

   Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and its atmosphere is thin, there is no air pressure and the temperature is very high.  Take a look inside the planet.  (Image credit: Carl Tate, SPACE.com)

   Oddly enough, due to Mercury's highly elliptical orbit and rotation on Earth's axis for 59 days or so, when on a scorched surface of the planet, the sun rises for a while, sets and travels west.  Appears to rise again before.  the sky.  At sunset, the sun appears to set, rises again for a while, and then sets.

   In 2016, Mercury had a rare transit, where the planet crossed the face of the sun visible from Earth.  Mercury's orbit may have uncovered secrets about its thin atmosphere, helped explore the world around other stars, and helped NASA improve some of its instruments.

   Just as it takes Mercury only days on Earth to orbit the Sun and Earth takes 365 days, about three or four times a year Mercury goes beyond the Earth during its journey around the Sun and creates an optical illusion.  Happens, according to the New York Times.  Mercury appears to move "backwards" in the sky for about three weeks, during which time Mercury is said to retreat.

   Research and exploration

   The first spacecraft to visit Mercury was the Mariner 10, which photographed about 45% of the surface and detected its magnetic field.

   NASA's Messenger Arbiter was the second spacecraft to visit Mercury.  When it arrived in March 2011, it became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet.  The mission ended abruptly on April 30, 2015, when the spacecraft, which had run out of fuel, deliberately crashed on the surface of the planet to observe the results of scientists.

   In 2012, scientists discovered a cluster of meteors in Morocco that they believe may have been formed from the planet Mercury.  If so, it would make the rocky planet a member of a very select club with patterns available on Earth.  Only the moon, Mars and the large asteroid Vista have confirmed the rocks in human laboratories.

   In 2016, scientists released Mercury's first global digital elevation model, combining more than 10,000 images captured via messenger to take viewers to open spaces in the small world.  The model reveals the planet's highest and lowest points - the highest is found just south of Mercury's equator, sitting 2.78 miles (4.48 kilometers) above the planet's average altitude, while the lowest  The point is to live in the Rachmaninoff Basin, which is the suspect's home.  The most recent volcanic activity on Earth, and 3.34 miles (5.38 kilometers) below average of the Earth's surface.

   In 2018, a new Mercury Explorer was launched.  The BP Colombo mission, which is jointly operated by European and Japanese space agencies, consists of two spacecraft - the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetaspheric Orbiter - which, after a long journey to Mercury, help to better understand the small world.  Will be separated for  Part of the European Space Agency's mission will focus on studying the surface of Mercury, while part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will focus on the planet's bizarre magnetic sphere.

   In 2021, Bepi Columbo got his first glimpse of Mercury during the Gravity Assist Fly By.  Bepi Columbo is due to arrive at Mercury at the end of 2025, and will collect data during its one-year nominal mission with the possibility of a one-year extension, according to ESA.