Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System and the closest planet to the Sun. With a diameter of just over 3000 miles, this small planet is about 1/3 of the size of the Earth and only 40% larger than the Earth. On a scale where Earth is the size of a baseball, Mercury will be the size of a golf ball.
Mercury has a very elongated orbit, which brings the planet about 28.5 million miles from the Sun in its closest approach, known as PERIHELION, and as far from 43 million miles in the farthest known as APHELION. At perihelion, the Sun appeared almost three times larger and about eleven times brighter if viewed from the surface of Mercury than what we see from the surface of the Earth (but the sky on Mercury would be black because Mercury does not have air). Mercury is so close to the Sun that it is usually hidden from it, making it difficult to study Mercury from Earth, although a small planet is only 48 to 50 million miles from Earth at close proximity.
Traveling at a speed of about 108,000 miles per hour, Mercury completes a single orbit around the Sun in about 88 Earth days. The Earth travels about 66,000 miles an hour and every 365 days makes one orbit around the Sun. Mercury completes more than four orbits of the Sun in one Earth year. In contrast to this short year, the days and nights on Mercury are very long. Mercury slowly turns on its axis, taking about 59 Earth days to complete one rotation. Mercury completes only three rotations on its axis during two orbits around the Sun. This means that for three days on Mercury two years of Mercury continue.
Mercury was the name of the god of the Roman messenger, who carried messages and commissioned other gods. Mercury was also a god responsible for the supervision of commerce, commerce, travelers and merchants. Mercury was often associated with peace and prosperity, and was also considered the god of the winds because of its speed. As Mercury revolves around the Sun faster than any other planet of the Solar System, ancient civilizations, including Maya, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, assumed this accelerating "star" as a god-messenger in their religions and myths.
The surface temperature of mercury varies dramatically: from more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit on the side facing the Sun to about minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit on the side facing the side. This range of surface temperature between the solar and solar side of Mercury is the most extreme for any planet in the solar system. Mercury is simultaneously soaked and freezes ... literally! The main contribution to this cycle of extreme heat and cold is the fact that Mercury is too small to maintain a significant atmosphere. Mercury has an atmosphere, but it is so thin - only about 1 trillion of the density of the earth's atmosphere - that it practically does not exist. This is a subtle atmosphere of the events of Mercury from the conservation and circulation of heat around the planet. As the small planet rotates, the side that is no longer exposed to the sun cools down sharply, and the side facing the sun is fried.
The thin atmosphere of mercury contains traces of elements from the solar wind and gases, which were baked from the earth's crust and surface rocks of the planet. The planet retains its atmosphere with its gravitational pull. Mercury does not have enough mass to hold — by gravity — a fundamental atmosphere. The surface gravity of Mercury is only about 1/3 from the Earth. This means that a person who weighs 100 pounds on Earth will weigh about 38 pounds on Mercury. In addition, a planet closer to the Sun, like Mercury, is less likely to retain a thicker atmosphere than a farther planet like the Earth, because it constantly explodes with solar radiation. The charged particles emitted by the sun are firing on the planet, and this atomic debris really accumulates, but the intense heat combined with the weak gravity of Mercury allows gases to fail.
Mercury consists of about 70% iron and about 30% silicate material. It is believed that most of the iron of Mercury is concentrated in its core. This core, the densest of any planet in the solar system, is about 75% of the volume of Mercury. This means that the core of Mercury is proportionally larger than any other planet in the solar system. This nucleus may be responsible for creating weak Mercury - less than 1%, as strong as the Earth, but still a detectable magnetic field. This magnetic field is an indication that the core of Mercury contains molten iron and is not completely solid. The inner layer of fluid could, like the core of the Earth, act like a molten conductor. When Mercury rotates on its axis, molten iron in the core can generate a magnetic field surrounding a small planet.
The earth has a very conductive core consisting of iron and nickel. This core is very hot, but its material does not evaporate due to the enormous pressure inside the Earth. The material in the very center of the Earth’s core is under such high pressure that it has raised the melting point of this material so high that it does not melt, although it is subjected to intense heating, the pressure is so high that the metal is actually compressed into a solid inner core. Further from the center, the pressure drops, and the metal becomes a liquid external core. This fluid outer core, enclosing the solid inner core, flows and flows through the convection process and the effect of the rotation of the planet. The heat and movement of such a large amount of conductive material is what generates the Earth’s magnetic field. This process is known as DYNAMO EFFECT. The heat of the solid inner core of the Earth causes convection currents in the surrounding inner inner core, and the rotational motion of the Earth turns the core around the axis and causes it to be like an electric generator. Electricity and magnetism arise from the nucleus, where the eddy currents of molten iron generate electrical and magnetic fields. The magnetic field of the planet occupies an area of space around the planet, called the MAGNETOSPHERE, which deflects the solar wind and protects the planet.
Mercury is small because it is so close to the Sun, where there was not a lot of solid material, and what a small solid material was mostly metallic. That is why Mercury has such a large metal core. Mercury is formed from high-temperature minerals - metals and silicates - that can withstand high temperatures. But a planet as small as Mercury has long lost most of its internal heat, so any molten iron in the core of Mercury must be cooled and hardened. And if the iron core of the planet is not melted, then it cannot generate a magnetic field. Mercury should not have a magnetic field, because its iron core must be solid, and it rotates too slowly on its axis.
Mercury's magnetic field may be due to the fact that residual magnetism is "frozen" in a solid core. Mercury’s dense core can be surrounded by a thin shell of iron enriched with elements such as sulfur, which lower its melting point, which would allow the iron to remain in a liquid state and allow mercury to generate a magnetic field.
Geologically, Mercury is an inactive world that actually has more in common with the Earth than the other seven planets. Mercury has a bark of silicate rock and a rocky mantle. The surface of the planet is covered with a thin layer of fine dust and is heavily covered with scars with craters of all sizes, some old and degraded, and others that are quite young. When an object approaches Mercury, practically has no atmosphere, to slow it down or break it, the object hits the surface of the planet without changes and at full speed. Craters-craters are different from craters found on Earth, the moon, seemingly flatter with thinner rims due to the stronger gravitational pull of Mercury. But, like the craters of the moon, the craters of Mercury remain practically intact, because there is no liquid water on the surface or a sufficiently thick atmosphere to erode them.
One of the most notable features of Mercury, as well as its largest structural feature, is the Caloris Basin. Sprawling about as wide as the state of Texas from the rim to the rim, the Caloris Basin was probably formed as a result of a powerful asteroid impact. The interior of the basin is fractured and arched, and in the middle of the basin is a formation known as a spider, which consists of more than 100 narrow deflections that radiate from the central region. The pool is surrounded by a ring of mountains called Caloris Montes, which rises approximately one mile above the surrounding surface. Beyond the mountains are the areas littered with stones thrown by the blow itself. The impact that Caloris created was so strong that its shock waves were likely to be felt on the opposite side of the planet, which led to hilly terrain.
Craters on Mercury are separated by lava plains, ridges, valleys, mountains and cliffs up to two miles in height and more than 300 miles in length. No other planet or moon in the Solar System has such a huge amount of winding rocks that snake hundreds of miles over the surface. These lines of rocks that cross the surface of Mercury, keep a record of the wine activity at an early stage in the history of the planet. These rocks were probably created when Mercury began to cool after its formation. They show that when Mercury’s internal cooling is reduced. This reduction led to the fact that the crust of the Mercury was fastened, and the rocks and ridges were created by compression, when the crust was crumpled around the shrinking inside.
The surface of Mercury also has an imprint of a series of stop faults, where the areas of the crust overlap with each other. Like cliffs, the cracking rift was caused by a reduction in the crust as Mercury cooled. But some of the disadvantages may be the result of tidal stresses. Mercury is controlled by tidal forces generated by the sun. Being so close to the Sun, the gravity of the Sun probably distorted the shape of Mercury and created some of the flaws in the bark of Mercury. The friction of these forces is also responsible for the slow rotation of Mercury.
The surface of Mercury also preserves the history of volcanism with the plains, which were probably created by cooling the lava. The smoother plains, which appear to be hardened lava flows, covering the older landscape, are the youngest and cover about 40% of the surface of the planet. There is also evidence of water ice in the polar regions of Mercury. Impact craters at the poles contain areas shrouded in a constant shadow that can hold ice for long periods of time.
The NASA spacecraft, designated Mariner 10, launched on November 3, 1973, became the first spacecraft to explore two planets. As the main goal of Mercury, Mariner 10 completed the span of the planet Venus in February 1974, passing within 3300 miles of Venus and occupying about 6800 paintings. This span of Venus allowed Mariner 10 to use the gravity of the planet to bend its flight path to Mercury.
Mariner 10 used the gravitational pull of the planet Venus to give a push in the direction of the planet Mercury. After the first collision of a spacecraft with Mercury in March 1974, he switched to a permanent orbit around the Sun, which welcomed the Sailor 10 back to Mercury in September and then again in March 1975. The contact was lost with Mariner 10 a little more than a week after the third passage of Mercury, but it still revolves around the Sun and approaches Mercury approximately every six months. The only real problem with Merier's Mariner 10 three spans was that the same part of the small planet was in the sunlight during each passage, so the surface of the entire planet could not be displayed.
The Mariner 10 weighed about 1109 pounds and was fitted with protective blankets and an umbrella made of teflon fiberglass fabric. The spacecraft was built to withstand not only extreme cold temperatures in space, but also extreme heat from being close to the sun. Mariner 10 was equipped with instruments for studying the atmospheric, surface and physical characteristics of Mercury and Venus. Two solar panels were attached to the top of the spacecraft. With the expansion of the solar panels, the Mariner 10 had a wingspan of about 25 feet.
Mariner 10 took thousands of photographs of Mercury and mapped about half the surface of the planet. Mariner 10 confirmed the mass and rotational period of Mercury and discovered the magnetic field of Mercury, the Caloris basin, the system of rocks and plains of the planet and its thin atmosphere, and also found that Mercury is more like a sphere than Earth.
On August 3, 2004, a NASA (Messer) spacecraft was launched on its way to Mercury (the spacecraft of space geology and space). The goals of the Envoy included building a detailed map of the surface of Mercury, determining the chemical composition of the surface of Mercury, studying the geological history of the planet, studying the behavior and determining the origin of Mercury & Magnetic field determining the size and state of the Mercury core and studying the nature of the Mercury atmosphere. The spacecraft was formed as a flat box. It was equipped with a semi-cylindrical thermal shade for sun protection, two solar cell covers for power supply - for each row of solar cells there were two rows of mirrors for reflecting and dissipating heat - a nickel-hydrogen battery for storing energy, low-speed high speed (LVA) and a series of small engines to adjust the flight path and attitude. The envoy was also equipped with fuel tanks and related plumbing, spacecraft and five scientific instruments installed on the outer ship. The mission of the envoys was to spend at least one year studying Mercury from orbit.
In August 2005, the Messenger flew over the Earth for gravitational assistance. In December of the same year, the Envoy released his large engine for more than eight minutes to go to the course for the entry of Venus in October 2006. The second expansion of Venus occurred in June 2007, which resulted in Messenger according to the course for the series of flights of Mercury in January 2008.
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, the gravitational pull of the Sun forces the spacecraft to accelerate as it approaches a tiny planet. This required the Messenger to slow down enough to be captured by the weak gravitational gravity of Mercury. Thus, during the first five years of the mission, Messenger flew Mercury three times, each taking off using the power of Mercury to slow down so much as to reach orbits around the planet by March 2011.
During the span of Mercury, the Envoy gave mankind a global view of Mercury, revealing evidence of past volcanic activity, which most likely hid evidence of Mercury’s early history. The messenger also observed radiating impact craters, obtaining evidence of a shifting liquid core inside the planet, which generates its magnetic field, and discovered water vapor in the exosphere of Mercury. Because of these blunders, about 90% of the surface of Mercury was displayed and analyzed.
March 18, 2011, traveling more than six and a half years, Messenger became the first spacecraft to orbit around the planet Mercury. To accomplish this, the Messenger pointed out his large engine, approaching its direction of motion, and shot him almost fourteen minutes, and the other engines for an additional minute. This maneuver slowed down the spacecraft by about 1929 miles per hour and allowed the gravitational exit of Mercury to take it into orbit. If the Messenger did not do anything, then the gravity of Mercury would deny his movement, and the spacecraft just swept past the planet. Instead, the Messenger slowed down and inserted himself into the twelve-hour orbit around the nearest planet to the Sun. It simply means that the Messenger entered orbit, which conducted him around Mercury once every twelve hours. The initial scientific phase of the Messenger mission began next month, April 4, when the spacecraft began to display the surface of Mercury.
One of the discoveries of Mariner 10 during the first span of Mercury was bursts of energy particles in the magnetosphere of Mercury. Such events were not observed by the Messenger during his misses of the planet in 2008 and 2009. But after reaching orbit, the Messenger began to observe these energy surges almost daily.
Посланник обнаружил, что большая часть поверхности Меркурия покрыта высушенной лавой и что магнитное поле Меркурия смещено к северу от центра планеты. Посланник также обнаружил, что скалы на поверхности Меркурия не содержат большого количества железа и что на ночной стороне планеты высокие концентрации магния и кальция. Messenger также обнаружил, что ядро Mercury немного больше, чем первоначально предполагалось, предполагая, что на него приходится до 85% объема планеты. Изображения Посланника Меркурия в конце 2011 и 2012 годов подтвердили, что на Меркурии есть месторождения водного льда вокруг северных и южных полюсов планеты в регионах, постоянно затененных от Солнца. Было подсчитано, что на планете, ближайшей к Солнцу, может находиться от 100 до 1 триллиона тонн водного льда. Посланник также обнаружил месторождения того, что кажется смесью замороженной воды, и что может быть органическими материалами.
