Simple Guide to our Solar System: Mercury

Mercury

The Basics

Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and the closest planet to our Sun. An interesting fact, the Sun would appear three times as large in the sky and 11 times brighter than here on Earth.  But despite its close proximity to the Sun, it is not our hottest planet. The crown in that category belongs to Venus, Earth's twin sister. Mercury gets its name from the Roman God Mercury because it is the fastest planet in our solar system. Mercury completes its year around the Sun in only 88 Earth days. This means that the planet wisps around the Sun at a staggering 112,000 mph (180.000 km/h). Now you can see why it is named after the Roman God Mercury.

Characteristics

Mercury has a radius of 1,516 miles (2,440 km) and is only 36 million miles (58 million km) from the Sun. It takes light 3.2 minutes to travel from the Sun to Mercury and that is amazing. Mercury has an egg-shaped orbit known as an eccentric orbit. Other notable characteristics of Mercury are as follows:

• Completes one rotation every 59 Earth days
• Mercury does not experience seasons 
• One of 4 terrestrial planets in the solar system
• Aside from how close it is to the Sun, Messenger, a spacecraft sent by the planet has discovered water at Mercury's poles.
• It is the smallest planet in the solar system, only slightly larger than the Earth's moon.

Mercury is a terrestrial planet, one of 4 in the inner solar system. Terrestrial comes from the Latin phrase "Terra" which means Earth. The average density of the planet is 5.427 g/cm3 . Mercury's make up is similar to that of Earth's. Mercury has a molten Iron core surrounded by a mantle of superheated rock which is then surrounded by a crust rock layer.

NASA

Mercury, with colors enhanced to emphasize the chemical, mineralogical and physical differences among the rocks that make up its surface.

The surface of Mercury is an unforgiving one, with temperatures reaching close to 900 degrees in the sunlight. Although the surface is scorching hot, it is still not the hottest planet in our solar system! Can you guess which planet holds that title? Comment below! 

Interestingly enough, Mercury joins Earth as a planet with active plate tectonics. The inner mantle of the planet is cooling causing the planet to shrink. This action causes the surface of the planet to crack creating huge mountain ranges and rift valleys.

Mercury has a very thin exosphere that is composed of 42 percent oxygen, 29 percent sodium, 22 percent hydrogen, 6 percent helium, 0.5 percent potassium, with trace amounts of other elements. This exosphere is formed due to the intense solar winds and meteor impacts pounding the surface, blowing off atoms into space.

Thought Mercury was a complex planet, wait until you see the next stop on our journey! Stay tuned for the planet, Venus!

Click here to read about Venus!!

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Simple Guide to our Solar System: The Sun

THE SUN

The Basics

The Sun is at the center of our solar system. It is a hot ball of glowing gas and its influence extends to the outer edges of our solar system. The Earth, weather, climate, and life as we know it would not be the same without the Sun! Our sun is middle-aged, it is about 4.6 billion years old and it is the largest object in our solar system.

Characteristics

The Sun is a G-type main sequence star also known as a yellow dwarf. The surface temperature is about 5200 - 6000 K (8900 - 10340 F) and its luminosity is stellar classification V of spectral type G.

To simplify this classification, a G type star is going through a process of converting the element hydrogen to helium. Believe it or not, the Sun is actually white! It appears yellow through the Earth's atmosphere, but if you were to go into outer space, past the Earth's atmosphere you would see a white Sun. As a matter of fact, G type stars range from white to a very light yellow color. Really, the most important thing about the Sun's G type is that it converts hydrogen to helium, it is 5200- 6000 K, and it's color ranges from white to a very light yellow.

Our Sun is also known as a Main Sequence star this is explained well in the You Are Made of Star Dust! post. The Sun is nearly 1.4 million miles in diameter, and the mass is an incredible 333,060 kilograms TIMES the Earth. The Sun is huge compared to all other objects in our solar system as depicted by the image below! 

Compared to the Earth, the Sun is so large, 1 million times more large, that it would take about 1.3 million Earths to fill the Sun.

 There are 6 layers that make up the Sun. We will start from the inside and move outward. The Inner core is where nuclear fusion occurs and creates energy. The Radiative zone is where that energy is transmitted through radiation. The convective zone is the area of convection currents where heat is. Those three layers compose the internal structures of the Sun.  The Photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun, it is what we are most familiar with when we see photographs of the Sun. The chromosphere appears red and is visible at the time of a solar eclipse it also releases UV radiation. Lastly, the corona is a plasma that surrounds the Sun and is visible during a total solar eclipse, observable with a coronagraph. The corona extends millions of kilometers into space. 

When will the Sun die?

Sadly, all things come to an end. Fortunately for us, our star does not have enough mass to go supernova. Our Sun is a main sequence star which means it is fusing hydrogen into helium. After about 5 billion years, there will be no more hydrogen to fuse and the Sun will expand into a Red Giant. The Sun will engulf Mercury, Venus, and quite possibly the Earth. Even before the Sun becomes a Red Giant, the luminosity, or how bright the Sun shines, will have nearly doubled, and the Earth will be even hotter than Venus. 

There are many more sources out there about the Sun! If you want to know more information about the Sun, please use your resources appropriately! This is just a simple quick guide to understanding the Sun. 

The next stop on your journey through the solar system is Mercury; Click Here!!

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Simple Guide to our Solar System: Comets

Comets

What is a Comet?

Comets are thought to be remnants of planet formation otherwise known as “dirty snowballs” which orbit the Sun in an eccentric orbit. They are made of different ices, such as water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane. These materials came from the time when the Solar System was formed 4.6 billion years ago. Comets are composed of different layers. The icy inner most layer of a comet is called the nucleus. The nucleus is surrounded by a large cloud of gas and dust called the coma. As the comet gets closer to the Sun, the comet becomes warmer and the ice in the nucleus melts and vaporizes creating a cloud and that is how the coma is formed. As comets travel closer to the Sun, they develop a tails: an ion tail and a dust tail. The comet is approaching the Sun causing it to heat up and crack. As it cracks, gasses can escape from the icy shell and mixes with the charged particles from the Sun’s solar winds which then converts the gas into ions, which forms the ion tail. The dust tail is formed as the comet gets closer to the Sun. The radiation from the Sun pushes dust particles away from the coma, forming a dust tail. Since these tails are formed by the radiation and winds coming from the Sun, they always face away from the Sun.

Where do Comets Come From?

           

            Comets usually come from two regions of our solar system. The first is the Kuiper Belt, which is a disk of icy bodies that lies just beyond the orbit of Neptune. The second region is called the Oort Cloud which is a more distant, spherical collection of objects that marks the very edge of our Solar System. Comets that orbit the Sun for 200 years or less usually come from the Kuiper Belt while comets that orbit the Sun for thousands of years typically come from the Oort Cloud.

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For more blogs on comets:

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