Transcript Mercury - pridescience

Mercury
Andrew Chez
Discovery And Name
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Since mercury is visible with the naked eye it truly is
impossible to say who really discovered the planet, but
the model Copernicus made in 1543 with sun in the
center of the solar system listed Mercury as a planet and
Galileo backed up this evidence.
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Mercury is named after the messenger to the Roman
gods
Composition/ Appearance
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Mercury has a rocky
surface
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Mercury's core is 70%
metal and 30% silicates
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Mercury has a gray
surface with craters
Specifications of Mercury
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First planet from the Sun
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Approximately 57.9* km from Sun
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Approximately 91.6* km from Earth
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Mass: 3.3022x 1023 km
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Volume: 60,827,208,742 km3
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Average Radius: 2,439.7 km
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Rotation (Earth days): 58.646
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Orbit (Earth Years): 0.241
* millions
Moons?
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There is no evidence of moons
orbiting Mercury but experts
haven't ruled out possibility due
to how hard it has been to
study the planet, and because
not all data from MESSENGER
was analyzed. A moon was
thought to have existed during
the 1970's but it was later
confirmed as a
misinterpretation of a star.
MESSENGER
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MESSENGER is a robotic
spacecraft orbiting mercury that
has given us most of our
information and photographs of
the planet
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MESSENGER has recently
provided the possibility of water
in the form of ice at bottom of
Mercury's deeper craters due to
the fact that Mercury has a little
tilt on axis so the ice would get
no direct sunlight.
Atmosphere, Weather, And
Temperature
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Mercury barely has a atmosphere.
But the thin atmosphere it does have
is composed of hydrogen, helium,
oxygen, sodium, calcium, potassium,
and water vapors.
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There is not weather on the planet
due to the lack of atmosphere but
there is seasons with more or less
sunlight and drastic temperature
changes.
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Temperature changes drastically
depending on the time of the day
going from -300ºF all the way to
800ºF. The average surface
temperature is 440ºF
What If Humans Visited?
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If a human was to travel to Mercury without specialized
equipment a lot of things could and would happen. The
human could either be frozen to death or burned to death
depending on the time of the day. Since there is barely an
atmosphere the person would choke to death due to lack
in oxygen. Weight is 1/3 of that on Earth so the person
would be able to bounce at a great height.
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