With the exception of the Sun, Mercury is the closest celestial body to Earth. Due to its proximity to the Sun, it experiences极端的温度 fluctuations, with the surface temperature reaching up to 432°C during the day and dropping to as low as -172°C at night.The planet's t...
GIS is the cornerstone to managing MESSENGER's image data.The solar system's innermost planet, Mercury holds important clues about terrestrial planet formation. However, Mercury's proximity to the sun limits Earth-based observation (for example, magnified sunlight would fry a telescope's delicate op...
Mercury's proximity to the Sun and its orbit are discussed, as well as the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft mission, the craft's equipment, and Mercury's surface temperature.EBSCO_AspAstronomy...
Mercury’s proximity to the Sun and speed relative to the Earth (47km/s compared to 30km/s) makes it a difficult planet to visit. As such on the NASA space craft Mariner 10 and PIONEER have passed by. Check out the Mercury page for more planet facts....
Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun at a mean orbital semimajor axis of 0.3871 AU, has been observed from the times of earliest civilization. Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Mayan civilizations all included Mercury in their mythology and religions. The planet's close proximity to the Sun (from...
Mercury's high density is likely due to the effect of impact and gravitational compression on the planet during its formation, as well as its proximity to the Sun, which resulted in the loss of most of its primitive gas envelope. Mercury's high density also makes it more resistant to ...
History Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun at a mean orbital semimajor axis of 0.3871 AU, has been observed from the times of earliest civilization. Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Mayan civilizations all included Mercury in their mythology and religions. The planet's close proximity to the Sun...
to ~100 km at perihelion, with subsolar densities of 103 cm−3measured at altitudes of ~450 km3. Due to its proximity to the Sun, Mercury’s sodium exosphere experiences radiation pressure which compresses the exosphere at the subsolar region and accelerates sodium atoms to escape ...
On the basis of Mercury's high density and proximity to the Sun, it had been thought that the planet would be depleted in volatiles and thus devoid of pyroclastic deposits. One of the biggest surprises of the first MESSENGER flyby was the detection of features that were interpreted as deposi...
importance until the early 1990s. At that time Earth-basedradarmade the remarkable discovery of patches of highly radar-reflective materials at the poles. Messenger later observed that the patches were made ofwaterice. Despite Mercury’s proximity to the Sun, the water ice was able to survive ...