Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Axial Tilt, Caloris Planitia, Outer Core
4 Apr 2016
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Chapter 9: mercury - a sun scorched rock! Named after a roman god - rst rock from the sun! Always in the same region of sky around sun making it hard for us to see from earth! Only spacecraft in many years to have gotten close was the mariner 10! This changed on august 3, 2004 when the messenger was launched with the objectives:: determine surface material composition, investigate re ective materials at poles, analyze magnetic elds, determine if there was a liquid outer core! It took 6. 5 years before messenger was successfully in orbit around mercury, making it the. Mercury looks very similar to the surface of them ion in terms of its craters ! Both are small, airless, and inactive surfaces! Mean surface temp: 350oc by day and -170oc by night! Rotation period: 58. 65 days (earth is 24 hours)! Orbital period: 88 days (earth is 365 days)! Orbital inclination: 7 degrees to the tilt of earths orbit!
