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Today’s 22nd, albeit LATE Fact for #CozySpaceFactofTheWeek is for the planet Mercury!
As the first planet from the sun, a single year on this planet takes just 82 days!
In addition, Mercury is tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the sun.
SMB!
As the first planet from the sun, a single year on this planet takes just 82 days!
In addition, Mercury is tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the sun.
SMB!
1) With first discovery dating as far back as text preserved in a 7th-century BC copy on a pair of Babylonian tablets, Mercury is distinguishable with the naked eye on most clear nights.
At around 3,032 miles wide, it’s about 900 miles wider than the moon.
At around 3,032 miles wide, it’s about 900 miles wider than the moon.
2) Seeing Mercury’s proximity to the sun, (about 28.6-43.4 million miles on average) It’s current surface temperature has been measured to be around 800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well over enough to make concrete explode. It’s environment is
EXTREMELY unforgiving.
EXTREMELY unforgiving.
3) One side of mercury is perms a rly bathed in destructive radiation and extreme heat, meanwhile the other side comes down to an insta-freezing MINUS 300 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT.
4) Despite this, scientists do believe that it is possible that signs of extremophile microscopic organisms could possibly live between these hot and cold zones. However considering the circumstances, it is unlikely.
5) Mercury itself has no atmosphere. Instead, it possesses a thin exosphere made up of atoms blasted off the surface by solar wind and meteoroids.
This exosphere is composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium and potassium, with a gravitational pull 38% that of earth’s.
This exosphere is composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium and potassium, with a gravitational pull 38% that of earth’s.
6) If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 38 pounds on Mercury ^ you could basically do somersaults if you were obese.
7) As for Mercury’s origins, it was never exactly a remarkable planet, it’s origins coming with the birth of the solar system, with a rocky mantel and a solid crust.
8) Two spacecraft have visited Mercury: Mariner 10 (left), flew by in 1974 & 1975; and MESSENGER (right), launched in 2004, orbited Mercury over 4,000 times in four years before exhausting its fuel and crashing into the planet's surface on April 30, 2015.
9) Mariner 10 provided us with the first ever composite image of mercury, with some patches of it missing due to a lack of shooting in that area.
10) MESSENGER however, gave us dozens of highly detailed and photogenic images of both sides of Mercury. Through it’s 4,000 orbits of the planet, it collected nearly 88,746 images, documenting 100% of it’s surface!
11) Mercury overall is an important piece of our solar system, since it essentially takes one for the team in allowing earth to remain the third planet, and currently only naturally habitable planet in the solar system.
12) Mercury also gives us an important look into tidally locked planets and ecosystems that are the first to their host star. Essentially, scorching hot on one side, and deathly freezing on the other. Not exactly the ideal vacationing spot.
I hope you enjoyed today’s fact!
I’ve decided that I’m tired of having to tell you guys a fact is going to be late. So I’ve made a decision:
I’M LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO HELP ME WRITE SPACE FACT OF THE WEEK POSTS!
If interested, DM me,l and we can talk further!
STAY COZY!
I’ve decided that I’m tired of having to tell you guys a fact is going to be late. So I’ve made a decision:
I’M LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO HELP ME WRITE SPACE FACT OF THE WEEK POSTS!
If interested, DM me,l and we can talk further!
STAY COZY!
There ya go bud %
