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Analytical Report on Mercury

Prepared for NASA
Prepared by Lluvia Dominguez, Mehida Ochoa, Viviana Garcia
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Table of Contents

Introduction/History Page 3

Analysis of Exploration - Page 3-5

Analysis Composition/Geographical & Physical Features/ Environment - Page 5-6

The Possibility of Human Habitation- Page 6-7

Conclusion - Page 7

References Page 8
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Introduction
This Analytical essay provides factual evidence, statistics, and informational resources for the

purpose of analyzing Mercurys geographical features, its environment, and its Possibility of

Sustaining Human Life. In addition to emphasize on Mercurys background and explorations

ever made by NASA experts. To provide an overall research and new knowledge findings on

Mercury.

History of Mercury

In Roman mythology Mercury is the lord of business, travel and burglary, the Roman partner of

the Greek god Hermes, the flag-bearer of the Gods. The planet most likely got this name since it

moves so rapidly over the sky. According to the article, What is the Planet Mercury?, Mercury

has been known since at any rate the season of the Sumerians (thirty thousand years BC) or most

known as the 14th Century. It was now and then given separate names for its nebulous visions as

a morning star and as a night star. Greek space experts knew, nonetheless, that the two names

alluded to a similar body. Heraclitus even trusted that Mercury and Venus circle the Sun, not the

Earth. Because this planet is nearer to the Sun than the Earth, the light of Mercury's circle

fluctuates when seen with a telescope from our point of view. One interesting fact is that

Galileo's telescope was too little to see Mercury's stages.

Analysis of Exploration

Mercury has been currently gone by two shuttles, Mariner 10 and MESSENGER. Mariner 10

flew three times in 1974 and 1975. Just 45% of the surface was mapped and it seemed super

close to the sun. The second one Messenger, was sent by NASA in 2004 and has been in circle

since 2011. Its first fly by Jan 2008 gave new great pictures of a portion of the landscape not
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seen by Mariner 10. Which made things much easier to study. From that point on Messenger has

captured 250,000 photos covering the whole planet.

The mission has offered help for the speculation that water ice and different volatiles do exist in

the polar locales in lasting shadow. The theory is bolstered by three free lines of proof:

1. Errand person's Neutron Spectrometer made the main estimations of abundance hydrogen at

the planet's north shaft.

2. Envoy's Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) measured the reflectance of Mercury's polar stores.

3. The MLA has measured the geography of the polar districts empowering the primary itemized

models of the surface and close surface temperatures of Mercury's north polar locales using the

genuine geology

Mercury's orbit is exceedingly unusual; at perihelion, it is just 46 million km from the Sun

however at aphelion is 70 million. The position of the perihelion forms around the Sun at a

moderate rate. Astronomers form the 19th Century mentioned exceptional focused facts of

Mercury's orbital parameters yet couldn't sufficiently clarify them utilizing Newtonian

mechanics. The little contrasts between the watched and anticipated qualities were a minor yet

bothering issue for a long time. It was believed that another planet

called Vulcan, occurred to be nearer to the Sun than Mercury may

represent the error. But without deeper research, no such planet

was found.

Until 1962 it was suspected that Mercury's "day" was a similar

length from its "year" in order to keep that same face to the Sun

much as the Moon does to the Earth. This was known to be false
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in 1965 by doppler radar perceptions. It is currently realized that Mercury turns three times in

two of its years. Mercury is the main body in the close planetary system known to have an

orbital/rotational reverberation with a proportion other than 1:1

This reality and the high flightiness of Mercury's circle would create abnormal impacts for an

observer on Mercury's surface. At a few longitudes, they would see the Sun rise and after that bit

by bit an incensement until reaching the most successful point. By then the Sun would stop,

quickly invert course, and stop again before continuing its way toward the skyline and

diminishing in clear size. At the same time the stars would move three times quicker over the

sky.

Analysis: Composition of Mercury

According to Jerry Coffey, the rotation of Mercury Is a little strange to the Earth-bound

creatures. It rotates its axis very slow compare to its orbital period of 88 days (December 24,

2015). One rotation takes 175.97 Earth days. In addition, Mercury rotates every 58.647 days and

orbits twice during every three rotations, since mercury is so close to the sun and rotates so

slowly the temperature in Mercury can reach over 800 degrees freighting.

Analysis of Geographical & Physical Features/ Environment

To continue, the surface of Mercury is covered with craters just

like the moon, According to Windows to the Universe scientist

believe that the interior structure of Mercury includes a metallic

core, an intermediate rocky layer, and a thin brittle crust (n.d).

Mercury is the only rocky planet that has global magnetic field

like the earth yet its magnetic field is weaker than the Earths because according to Mercurys
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Magnetic Field the solar wind counteracts Mercurys internal dynamo and weakens its magnetic

field (December 23, 2011). Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System by surface area,

volume, and equatorial diameter. Surprisingly, it is also one of the densest planets. It gained its

smallest title after Pluto was demoted. That is why older material refers to Mercury as the

second smallest planet. (Cain, December 23, 2015). Some scientists think that Mercury is

shrinking which is mind blowing.

Furthermore, Gravity on Mercury is 38% of the gravity here on Earth. A man weighing 980

Newtons on Earth (about 220 pounds), would only weigh about 372 Newtons (83.6 pounds)

landing on the planets surface. Mercury is only slightly bigger than our moon, so you might

expect its gravity to be like the Moons at 16% of Earths. The big difference Mercurys higher

density its the second densest planet in the Solar System. In fact, if Mercury were the same

size as Earth, it would be even more dense than our own planet. (Cain, December 23, 2015)

Analysis of The Possibility of Human Habitation

Now, as you been reading there is a lot of differences between Mercury and the Earth our home,

to start one is the diameter, the diameter of Mercury is 4,879km that is approximately 38

percent the diameter of Earth (Cain, December 23, 2016). To give you a visual in order for

mercury to be a little bigger than the planet Earth Mercury would have to be 3 times its own size

so you can imagine how small Mercury is no wonder is the second smallest planet. If we could

live in Mercury (which we cant because its hot) The surface area to live there are 75 million

square kilometers, which is approximately 10 percent of the area of the Earth (Cain, December

23, 2016). Once again to give you a visual, if you could unwrap Mercury, it would be almost

twice as Asia, so even if Mercury wasnt so hot to live there the Earths population wouldnt fit

in Mercury. When it comes to volume, the volume of mercury id 5.4 percent of the volume of
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Earth (Cain, December 23, 2016). Again, to give you a visual you could fit 18 objects the size

of mercury inside of the earth. Finally, when it comes to gravity on the surface of Mercury you

would experience 28 percent the force of gravity that you experience on Earth (Cain, December

23, 2016). In other words, you would weight a lot less in Mercury than what you Weigh here on

Earth.

Conclusion

Overall, Mercurys proximity to the largest star we see on earth everyday makes it impossible for

human habitation ever to be considered. Thus, making it the fastest planet. Although it is the

smallest planet, not taking Pluto into account, its distance from the sun is so close that looking at

our sun would mean looking at a sun 3x larger if you were to be viewing such from Mercury. It

would be impossible to prolong life on Mercury since its the overall second hottest planet in our

solar system. And even though explorations done by shuttles have been done in previous years

on mercury, it is yet to be seen what more is to come. Currently, on aspirations to get to Mars one

day, the possibility of Mercury from being next in the Future Space explorations is yet to be

seen.

References
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Cain, F. (December 23, 2015). Characteristics of Mercury. Universe Today. Retrieved from

https://www.universetoday.com/34571/characteristics-of-mercury/

Cain, F. (December 23,2015). Mercury compare to Earth. Universe Today. Retrieved from

https://www.universetoday.com/22150/mercury-compared-to-earth/

Coffey, J. (December 24, 2015). Rotation of Mercury. Universe Today. Retrieved from

https://www.universetoday.com/14008/rotation-of-mercury/

May, S. (2015, September 16). What is The Planet Mercury?. Retrieved from

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-planet-

mercury-k4.html

Mercurys Interior and Surface. (n.d). Windows to the Universe. Retrieved from

http://www.windows2universe.org/mercury/Interior_Surface/Overview.html

Mercurys Magnetic Field. (December 23, 2011). PHYs. Org. Retrieved from

https://phys.org/news/2011-12-mercury-magnetic-field-nipped.html