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How to prioritize needs in survival situations
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Orbit and rotation
Mercury's highly eccentric, egg-shaped orbit takes the planet as close as 29 million miles (47 million kilometers) and as far as 43 million miles (70 million kilometers) from the Sun. It speeds around the Sun every 88 days, traveling through space at nearly 29 miles (47 kilometers) per second, faster than any other planet.
Mercury spins slowly on its axis and completes one rotation every 59 Earth days. But when Mercury is moving fastest in its elliptical orbit around the Sun (and it is closest to the Sun), each rotation is not accompanied by a sunrise and sunset like it is on most other planets.
The morning Sun appears to rise briefly, set and rise again from some parts of the planet's surface. The same thing happens in reverse at sunset for other parts of the surface. One Mercury solar day (one full day-night cycle) equals 176 Earth days—just over two years on Mercury.
Mercury spins nearly perfectly upright and so does not experience seasons like many other planets do.
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Quick facts
Day: 176 Earth days
Year: 88 Earth days
Radius: 1,516 miles | 2,439.7 kilometers
Planet type: Terrestrial
Temperature: 800 degrees Fahrenheit, 430 degrees Celsius/ -290 degrees Fahrenheit ...
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Atmosphere
Instead of an atmosphere Mercury possesses a thin exosphere made up of atoms blasted off the surface by the solar wind and striking meteoroids. Mercury's exosphere is composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium and potassium.
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Surface
Mercury's surface resembles that of Earth's moon, scarred by many impact craters resulting from collisions with meteoroids and comets. Craters and features on Mercury are named after famous deceased artists, musicians or authors.
Temperatures on the surface of Mercury are extreme, both hot ...
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Size and distance
With a radius of 1,516 miles (2,440 kilometers), Mercury is a little more than 1/3 the width of Earth.
If Earth were the size of a nickel, Mercury would be about as big as a blueberry.
From an average distance of 36 million miles (58 million kilometers), Mercury is 0.4 astronomical un...
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Mercury
The smallest planet in our solar system and nearerst to the Sun,
Mecury is only slightly larger than the Earth's Moon. From the surface of Mercury, the sun would appear more than three times as large as it does when viewed from Earth, and the sunlight would be as much as seven times bright...
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Structure
Mercury is the second densest planet, after Earth. It has a large metallic core with a radius of about 1,289 miles (2,074 kilometers), about 85 percent of the planet's radius.
There is evidence that it is partly molten, or liquid. Mercury's outer shell, comparable to Earth's outer shell (c...
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Magnetosphere
Mercury's magnetic field is offset relative to the planet's equator.
Though Mercury's magnetic field at the surface has just one percent the strength of Earth's, it interacts with the magnetic field of the solar wind to sometimes create intense magnetic tornadoes that funnel the fast, hot ...
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Formation
Mercury formed about 4.5 million years ago when gravity pulled swirling and dust together to form this small planet nearest the Sun. Like its fellow terrestrial planets, Mercury has a central core, a rocky mantle and a solid crust.
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Potential for life
Mercury's environment is not conductive ot life as we know it The temperatures and solar radiation that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme for organisms to adapt to.
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Orbit and rotation
Venus rotation and orbit are unusual in several ways, Venus is one of just two planets that rotate from east to west.
Only Venus and Uranus have this "backwards" rotation. It completes one rotation in 243 Earth days — the longest day of any planet in our solar system, even longer than a wh...
Orbit an rotation
As mars orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 24,6 hours, which is very similar to one day on Earth (23.9 hours). Martian days are called sols—short for "solar day." A year on Mars lasts 669.6 sols, which is the same as 687 Earth days.
Mars' axis of rotation is tilted 25 degrees w...
Mercury
The smallest planet in our solar system and nearerst to the Sun,
Mecury is only slightly larger than the Earth's Moon. From the surface of Mercury, the sun would appear more than three times as large as it does when viewed from Earth, and the sunlight would be as much as seven times bright...
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