Mercury

=**//__﻿ Welcome to Mercury's Wiki __//**=


 * =﻿ Mercury was named after the roman messenger of the gods his name was Hermes. Because he moved faster than anyone which reminded them of Mercury. Because Mercury is fast too. Mercury is the second smallest planted and the closest to the Sun. Its diameter is 40% smaller than the earth and 40% bigger than the earth’s moon. =




 * = ‘’If an explorer were to step onto the surface of Mercury, he would discover a world resembling lunar terrain. Mercury's rolling, dust-covered hills have been eroded from the constant bombardment of __meteorites__. Fault-cliffs rise for several kilometers in height and extend for hundreds of kilometers. Craters dot the surface. The explorer would notice that the Sun appears two and a half times larger than on Earth; however, the sky is always black because Mercury has virtually no atmosphere to cause scattering of light. As the explorer gazes out into space, he might see two bright stars. One appearing as cream colored __Venus__ and the other as blue colored __Earth__.’’ =

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 * = Until __Mariner 10__, little was known about Mercury because of the difficulty in observing it from Earth telescopes. At maximum elongation it is only 28 degrees from the Sun as seen from Earth. Because of this, it can only be viewed during daylight hours or just prior to sunrise or after sunset. When observed at dawn or dusk, Mercury is so low on the horizon that the light must pass through 10 times the amount of Earth's atmosphere than it would if Mercury was directly overhead. =

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 * = During the 1880's, Giovanni Schiaparelli drew a sketch showing faint features on Mercury. He determined that Mercury must be tidally locked to the Sun, just as the Moon is tidally locked to Earth. In 1962, radio astronomers looked at radio emissions from Mercury and determined that the dark side was too warm to be tidally locked. It was expected to be much colder if it always faced away from the Sun. Mercury's rotation period is 58.65 day's on Earth and =
 * [[image:http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ43tK_tZ3x_MbWv83XmFg9-rmnoU3t8MIpOOUD6Hl7DwM_9IU2V5X_5Ykr width="457" height="367"]]
 * = Although Mercury is not tidally locked to the Sun, its rotational period is tidally coupled to its orbital period. Mercury rotates one and a half times during each orbit. Because of this 3:2 resonance, a day on Mercury (sun rise to sun rise) is 176 Earth days long as shown by the following diagram.Mercury is about 28.58 millions of miles from the Sun. The farthest point on Mercury is 52.58 millions. Mercury is 48 millions away from Earth. =


 * = Mercury is the only inner planet other than the Earth that has a significant magnetic field (220 NT). This field, along with the planet's high density and small size relative to the Earth, indicates that it probably has a molten iron core. The magnetic field has two poles, and is tilted in the same direction as Mercury's axis. Mariner 10 observed a shock wave called a "bow shock" in front of the planet, where the planet's magnetic field meets the solar wind. This is where we found this info =

= [|windmahttp://windows2universe.org/mercury/Magnetosphere/magsphere_overview.htmlgnetic] =


 * = The color of Mercury is grey and some times a burn orange. Mercury's cloud coverage is very thick. Mercury is the second major planet in the solor system. Mercury's atmosphere is 42% oxygen, 29% sodium, 22% hydrogen. Mercury has craters which dominate the landscape. Mercury's temperature is 800 degress Fahrenheit and 400 degress Celsius. The eccentricity is 0.21. There are zero moons. =

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