Mercury  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               The innermost and smallest planet in the solar system,orbiting the Sun once every 88 days. Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, ranging from −2.0 to 5.5 inapparent magnitude, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun is only 28.3°. It can only be seen in morning or evening 

twilight.

 

 

 

Orbit

 

               Mercury has a very elliptical (oval-shaped) orbit. At perihelion (at its closest point) it is about 46 million km (28.58 million miles) from the Sun, but at aphelion (at its farthest point) it is 70 million km. Mercury is about 77.3 million km (48 million miles) from Earth at its closest approach. Mercury is not easily seen from Earth due to its small angular separation from the Sun. Mercury moves around the sun faster than any other planet. Mercury travels about 48 km (30 miles) per second and it takes 88 Earth days to orbit the sun. The Earth goes around the sun once every 365 days (one year).

Rotation

 

 

           The planet rotates once about every 59 Earth days, a rotation slower than that of any other planet except Venus. As a result of the planet's slow rotation on its axis and rapid movement around the sun, a day on Mercury lasts 176 Earth days (interval between one sunrise and the next).

 

Composition

 

               Mercury is the second densest major body in the solar system after Planet Earth and its density is slightly less than the Earths. Mercury's smaller mass makes its force of gravity only about a third as strong as that of the Earth. An object that weighs 100 pounds on the Earth would weigh only about 38 pounds on Mercury.

Mercury has a large iron core which is most likely at least partially molten and generates a magnetic field about 1% as strong as that of Earth's. Mercury's interior appears to resemble that of the Earth. Both planets have a rocky layer called a mantle beneath their crust and both planets have an iron core.

 

 

           

1. Crust—100–300 km thick

2. Mantle—600 km thick

3. Core—1,800 km radius

 

 

1. Surface

 

 

           The surface of Mercury consists of cratered terrain and smooth plains and many deep craters similar to those on the moon. The craters formed when meteors or small comets crashed into the planet. The largest known crater is Caloris Basin, with a diameter of 1300 km (800 miles).

 

Like the other terrestrial planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) Mercury is made mostly of rock and metal. Mercury's surface appears to be much like that of the moon. It reflects approximately 6 percent of the sunlight it receives, about the same as the moon's surface reflects. Like the moon, Mercury is covered by a thin layer of minerals called silicates in the form of tiny particles.

 

Water

 

Scans of Mercury made by Earth-based radar indicate that craters at Mercury's poles contain water ice. The floors of the craters are permanently shielded from sunlight, so the temperature never gets high enough to melt the ice.

 

Temperature

 

 

Mercury is a planet of extreme temperature variations. It is hotter on Venus, but with less fluctuations. The temperature on the planet may reach 450 degrees C (840 degrees F) during the day. But at night, the temperature may drop as low as -170 degrees C (-275 degrees F). The sunlight on Mercurys surface is 6.5 times as intense as it is on Earth due its closeness to the sun.

 Atmosphere

 

 

Mercury is dry, extremely hot and almost airless. Planet Mercury is too small for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time. The weak atmosphere contains hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium and potassium.

 

Due to the heat of the planet, the very thin atmosphere is blasted off its surface by the solar wind and quickly escapes into space. Mercury's atmosphere is constantly being replenished.

 

Mercury does not have enough atmosphere to slow down meteoroids and burn them up by friction. The sun's rays are approximately seven times as strong on Mercury as they are on the Earth. The sun also appears about 2 1/2 times as large in Mercury's sky as in the Earth's.

 

 

Messenger Spacecraft

 

     In 2004, the United States launched the Messenger probe to Mercury. Messenger was scheduled to fly by Mercury twice in 2008 and once in 2009 before going into orbit around the planet in 2011. The probe was then to orbit Mercury for one Earth year while mapping Mercury's surface and studying its composition, interior structure, and magnetic field.

 

A second NASA mission to Mercury, named MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging), was launched on August 3, 2004, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket. The MESSENGER spacecraft will make several close approaches to planets to place it onto the correct trajectory to reach an orbit around Mercury. It made a fly-by of the Earth in August 2005, and of Venus in October 2006 and June 2007. Three fly-bys of Mercury are scheduled, in January 2008, October 2008, and September 2009. The probe will then enter orbit around the planet in March 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiment

 

 

 

 

 

          Send a space probe into the Mercury. The probe will take pictures of the landscape, if any, and will take small samples from the planet to analyze on the onboard analyzer. This will provide clues as of the history of the planet as well as the planet’s make-up. 

 

 

 How?

            This experiment would be hard to carry out based on our current technology. It hard to survives the extreme surface temperature of mercury. Therefore, in addition to all the technological advances, the space vehicle will need to be covered with a special material that can withstand 427 c of heat.  It would also need to be able to withstand cold temperatures. As for  equipments, the space probe would have the same equipment as the Phoenix Mars Lander so it can analyze the samples. After the space craft is built, it will travel across space in a similar manner to the Voyager 2 and will land in a similar way as of the Phoenix Mars Lander.

 

Equpiments

 

 

Alpha-X-Ray Spectrometer (AXS) for the analysis of the chemical composition of surface material

                An optional Moessbauer Spectrometer to analyze iron-bearing minerals

A camera system for microscopic sample imaging and rover navigation support

Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) for identifying rocks and soils for closer examination.

Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) for removing dusty and weathered rock surfaces and exposing fresh material for examination by instruments onboard.

 

 

 

 

Mercury Science Laboratory (Rover) Experiment

Carry more advanced scientific instruments.Analysis of samples scooped up from the soil and drilled powders from rocks.Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks.Investigate why polar areas do not experience the extreme daily variation in temperature seen on more equatorial areas of Mercury's surface. Also Polar ice composition

 

MercWork cited

 

 

 

www.nineplanets.org/mercury.html

 www.space.com/mercury/ 

 www.solarspace.co.uk/Mercury/mercury.php

 csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/mercury/mercury.html

science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/mercury-article. html