5 Amazing facts about planet Mercury.

Most extreme temperature fluctuation

Though mercury is the closest to the sun still it is the second most hottest planet of our solar system , but it does have the most extreme temperature fluctuations in the solar system. The temperature during the day can reach 840 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius), but at night, temperatures can get as low as minus 275 F (minus 170 C). That equals to a temperature difference of more than 1,100 F (600 C), the largest of any planet in the solar system.

2. Mercury has water ice and organic compounds

This may sound surprising given that the planet is so close to the Sun, but the ice is in permanently shadowed craters that don’t receive any sunlight. Organics, a building block for life, were also found on the planet’s surface. While Mercury doesn’t have enough atmosphere and is too hot for life as we know it, finding organics there demonstrates how those compounds were distributed throughout the solar system. There’s also quite a bit of sulfur on the surface, something that scientists are still trying to understand since no other planet in the Solar System has it in such high concentrations.

3. Mercury has wrinkles

As the iron core of the planet cooled and contracted, the surface of the planet became wrinkled. Scientist have named these wrinkles, "Lobate Scarps" . These Scarps can be up to a mile high and hundreds of miles long.

4. Mercury is shrinking
When researchers checked the images from the MESSENGER spacecraft they found something which they didn't expect. They found some many small valleys and many fault scraps (regions where the faults have vertically moved upwards). This was a proof that mercury shrank. 

Later they found out that there where many smaller fault scraps which means mercury is still shrinking. This shrinking is a result of mercury's core cooling. As the core cools ,the volume of the core reduces which is the reason for the formation of fault scraps. Till now mercury has shrunk 14 km in diameter and is still shrinking.

5. Mercury has "Tail"

Comets have tail , mercury has a tail so does that make mercury a comet?
Don't take it seriously , mercury is a planet not a comet but it does have a tail.

It was predicted in the 80's that mercury has a tail, later it was found that mercury does have a tail which is made up of sodium. Mercury actually has a very thin atmosphere which contains sodium. These atoms get thrown out when the sunlight hits them. This is what looks like a tail. Even though it was predicted in the 80's it was only discovered in the 2001.

Comments

Let's move the solar system - Stellar Engine

Ever thought of if we made contact with other intelligent life form , how are we gonna meet them physically with all the humans on earth? Don't worry there is a solution , and it is "Stellar Engine". Now what is a stellar engine? Simply put it is a hypothetical megastructure which uses a star's energy to propel or move the star and as the star moves the other planets will also move due the gravity of the star. The concept of Stellar engine was first introduced by Badescu and Cathcart. There are three classes of stellar engines : 1.Class A - Shkadov thruster One of the simplest examples of a stellar engine is the Shkadov thruster, or a Class A stellar engine. Such an engine is a stellar propulsion system, consisting of an enormous mirror/light sail—actually a massive type of solar statite large enough to classify as a megastructure—which would balance gravitational attraction towards and radiation pressure away from the star. Since the radiation pressure of the star wo

Top 5 Phenomenon that Science Still Couldn't Explain.

1.The Taos Hum In the small city of Taos, New Mexico, some residents and visitors for years have been annoyed and puzzled by a mysterious and faint low-frequency hum in the desert air. Oddly, only about 2 percent of Taos residents report hearing the sound. Some believe it is caused by unusual acoustics; others suspect mass hysteria or some secret, sinister purpose. Whether described as a whir, hum, or buzz and whether psychological, natural, or supernatural no one has yet been able to locate the sound's origin. Thing is, a survey revealed that those who claim to hear the sounds actually hear many different sounds, suggesting the experiences may be subjective, not actually objective sounds (and pretty certainly not one particular sound). 2.UFO's There is no doubt that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) exist — many people see things in the skies that they cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors. Whether or not any of those objects and lights are alien spacecraft is ano

Types of Black Holes and there formation.

Some black holes are born when a dying star collapses in on itself. Others through mergers. And some may have started off in an even weirder way. There are namely 4 types of black holes: 1. Stellar-Mass Black Holes The most well-known black holes , stellar-mass black holes, form when a massive star reaches the end of its life and implodes, collapsing in on itself. If the imploding star is between about eight and 20 times the mass of the Sun, however, it won’t form a black hole. Instead, the collapsing material will rebound off its core, causing it to erupt as a supernova. But if the collapsing star is greater than about 20 times the mass of the Sun, its core isn’t strong enough to stop the implosion. In fact, there is no mechanism that can prevent such a star from collapsing into a black hole. Depending on the initial size of the imploding star, the resulting stellar-mass black hole can reach up to about 100 or more times the mass of the Sun. 2. Intermediate Mass Black Holes As the n

Craving For Science

Search This Blog