Posted on 10/08/2011 8:06:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: One solar day on a planet is the length of time from noon to noon. A solar day lasts 24 hours on planet Earth. On Mercury a solar day is about 176 Earth days long. And during its first Mercury solar day in orbit the MESSENGER spacecraft has imaged nearly the entire surface of the innermost planet to generate a global monochrome map at 250 meters per pixel resolution and a 1 kilometer per pixel resolution color map. Examples of the maps, mosaics constructed from thousands of images made under uniform lighting conditions, are shown (monochrome at left), both centered along the planet's 75 degrees East longitude meridian. The MESSENGER spacecraft's second Mercury solar day will likely include more high resolution targeted observations of the planet's surface features. (Editor's note: Due to Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, a Mercury solar day is 2 Mercury years long.)
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
>>Nice pictures though it seems like such a waste of resources since man would be incinerated if he attempted to make a landing there.
Well, not really, if he landed on the back side he’d be frozen to death.
COULD YOU IMAGINE THE SUNRISE ON MERCURY THOUGH?
A sunrise on Mercury would be fantastic.The only problem I see would be that your retinas would burn out from the intensity of the exposure.
As far as making a landing on the dark side of the planet you would still be exposed to the suns maximum radiation on the approach to the planet.Unless of coarse you made the trip at night.Ha,Ha,Just joking.
Looks about like our Moon. That’s what I thought it was at first glance.
I’d imagine the ‘darkside’ of Mercury would be preferable for exploration because it would also be well protected from the dangers that can come from the Sun. Might be an excellent place to look at mining operations.
I saw a science documentary about Mercury, which always has the same hemisphere facing the sun.
It turns out that there is about a 60 mile temperate band running north to south, in an eternal "twilight zone" between the sun side and the dark side. According to the show, the temperature in that zone would accommodate human life.
The show was about what life would be like in a human operations base established in that zone.
It was pretty cool.
Survival on Mercury would be an engineering problem, just as it was on the Moon. The similarity with the Moon is probably very great. Mercury may have enough atmosphere to produce windstorms, which may be sandstorms somewhat analogous to those on Mars (which has an atmosphere that is very tenuous).
Thanks ETL.
Ok, possible stupid question of the day, but why are planets always round? Why not square, rectangular, lopsided, asymetrical, whatever. Why always round? An inquiring mind wants to know.
Gravity pulls all the mass toward its center. If you collected all the asteroids together into a single lumpy mass, they would eventually settle into a globe.
Perhaps it bears further investigation?
In a Hermetically-sealed environment, as it were....
Gravity pulls all the mass toward its center. If you collected all the asteroids together into a single lumpy mass, they would eventually settle into a globe.
Aha! Brilliant, my dear Watson. Question answered. I think the same process took place on my older physique, a simple lumpy mass that has settled into a globe, lol. Thanks for the info.
Somewhat rugged climate, but it won’t be long before some developer builds timeshares.
I imagine the radiation on Mercury must be brutal being so close to the sun. If the radiation levels on Mars are a problem for future maned exploration imagine the levels on Mercury.
What if “he” landed at some geographic mid-point between night and day. Or is that only a theoretical mid-point that is too small for a human craft to occupy, leaving it in real time mostly on one side or the other of such a midpoint.
If more than just a small and theoretical midpoint is possible, to land at, then would it be possible to have equipment that would use the temperature differential between the two sides of the midpoint to (a) produce energy or a “heat exchange process”, for the craft and (b) sufficient to protecting the craft, inside and out, from the temperature extremes? Just a thought.
Thanks, that’s not a site I’m wildly fond of, but that’s an excellent couple of paragraphs about the differences in impact energy. Given that Mercury doesn’t seem to be differentially cratered (as Mars is — a single large impact event formed a great many of Mars’ craters, in the “hemisphere of craters”), the surface also doesn’t appear to be as cratered as it should be if the planet formed at the same time as the Earth, and/or if it formed in what is now the Inner Solar System.
Since tidal forces from the Sun push the planet (and Earth, and any other body in prograde orbit) to higher orbit, even as it sucks down the rotational energy by the same process, Mercury had to either have been born from the Sun and migrated outward, or formed further out and at some point moved in. :’)
Why don’t you like Discover?
I meant Plaitt and his “Bad Astronomy”. He often lives up to the name though. :’)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
