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The Terrestrial Planets
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Exploration of Mercury
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Mercury Half-Mapped
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Mercury’s Orbit• Fairly eccentric with e=0.21
– Perihelion distance = 0.31 AU– Aphelion distance = 0.47 AU
• Resonance
– So Mercury rotates 3 times for every 2 orbits around the Sun
– This is a tidal effect from the Sun
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The Mercurian Day
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Advance of Mercury’s Orbit
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General Properties of Mercury
Temperature– 100 K at night to 700 K by day
Magnetic Field– Surprisingly strong at ~0.5% of Earth’s– Magnetic field and high average density
suggest a large iron coreAtmosphere
– NoneInterior
– Large iron core - 1/3 by volume, extending to about 70% of radius
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Degas
Impact craterabout 45 km
wide
Imaged by theMariner 10
flybys
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Surface Effects
Scarps are seen on Mercury.
Useful for relative dating and history of the
surface.
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Caloris Basin
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Interior of Mercury
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Origin Model for Mercury