Since our school days, the name Planet Mercury is certainly familiar to us. Or maybe for students who are currently still in school, the lessons about planets that are usually found in Natural Science lessons must discuss this Planet Mercury.
Knowledge about the Planet Mercury has actually existed since before Christ. At that time there were already early records made by the Sumerians. While the Greeks who know Mercury as Hermaon and Stilbon, two different planets.
At that time the Greeks really thought that Mercury was two twin planets, one planet appeared at sunrise while the twin appeared at sunset. Whereas Planet Mercury is seen in two different places, this is because the speed of Planet Mercury around the Sun is very fast, not because there are two Mercury Planets.
Other Names for the Planet Mercury
There are many names given to this planet Mercury. Most nations in Asia such as China, Japan, Vietnam and Korea named this planet as a water star. The Romans named the planet that has a very fast rotation speed after their god Mercury. While the Hebrews have their own name for the Planet Mercury, namely Kokhav Hamah which means the star of the hot.
Maybe there will be many other names for Planet Mercury, but this time we will discuss in more detail not the other names for Planet Mercury but the structure and appearance of this planet.
Planet Mercury in General
As we already know and also happens to other planets, a planet will perform two movements at one time, namely rotation and evolution. The rotation of Planet Mercury on its axis is very slow and only takes as much as fifty-nine days, while its revolution is rotating around the Sun, Planet Mercury is only eighty-eight days.
Just compare it with the revolution of the earth which takes 365.3 days or one year.
This research on Planet Mercury must be done again considering that Planet Mercury has only been visited by one NASA spacecraft in 1974 to 1975. Mariner 10 is a spacecraft that managed to approach Mercury and was only able to map the surface of the planet approximately forty-five percent of the entire surface of the planet Mercury.
This is because Mercury has a very high temperature, which is around four hundred and thirty degrees during the day and at night the temperature will drop to one hundred and seventy degrees. This is what makes it very difficult for many NASA spacecraft to approach this planet and conduct complete research on Planet Mercury.
Why does Planet Mercury have such extreme temperatures? This is because Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. The distance of Planet Mercury from the Sun is only about fifty-seven point nine million kilometers. So that Planet Mercury is also the smallest planet compared to other planets.
This can be seen from the diameter of Planet Mercury which is almost forty percent smaller than Planet Earth. Even the size of the Planet Mercury is also much smaller when compared to Titan (Saturn's moon) and Ganymede (Jupiter's moon).
The surface of the planet Mercury has many craters so that the surface of the planet looks uneven and bumpy, almost similar to the surface of the Earth which appears to have many craters and valleys. Unfortunately this planet is not like Earth, because it has no atmosphere and neither has satellites.
The structure of the Planet Mercury
Many experts have learned from the results of research conducted on Planet Mercury that this planet Mercury has a core that is most likely in liquid form because it looks at its core which occupies almost half of its total volume.
The planet Mercury has a structure composed of thirty percent silicates and nearly seventy percent of it is metal so it has a very large magnetic strength. While the density on Planet Mercury is almost the same as the density of Earth, which is about 5.34 grams per cubic centimeter.
However, if Earth's gravitational effects are not taken into account, it is clear that Mercury will have a greater density than Earth's.
Other Characteristics of the Planet Mercury
To know precisely this Planet Mercury, we can find out from the characteristics it has. The planet Mercury is a planet whose surface is full of rocks, many craters and very barren. There has never been a discovery that mentions that there are plants or plant-like organisms that have ever lived on the surface of this planet Mercury.
The diameter of the Kaloris he had was around one thousand three hundred kilometers. The planet Mercury is also mentioned that does not have an atmosphere layer like the atmosphere layer found on Earth.
This is because on Planet Mercury only very thin sodium and potassium vapors are found. Because the sodium and potassium vapors are very thin, this eventually causes Mercury to be unable to absorb the sun's heat, so the planet's surface is very hot.
There was once a research note that stated that on the surface of the planet Mercury, many hills were found that were hundreds of kilometers long. The hills are thought to have formed from the core and mantle of Mercury which cooled and formed a helpful crust like hills.
The mantle of this planet is about six hundred meters thick and covers the core of Mercury, while the crust that forms on its surface is about two hundred meters thick.
Some Theories About Mercury
There are two theories about Planet Mercury that have been recorded in the history of planetary research, namely:
Planet Mercury has far more iron content than other planets because at the beginning of its formation this planet had collided with a planetesimal measuring approximately one-sixth of its mass, resulting in the loss of some of Mercury's mantle and crust. This is what causes the core of Planet Mercury to open immediately and has a lot of iron content in its core.
There is another theory which states that the early formation of Planet Mercury was because the energy that came out of the Sun was so unstable that it created the solar nebula.
And the high temperature on Planet Mercury which is too close to the Sun causes most of the surface of Planet Mercury to evaporate and create an atmospheric layer in the form of rocks blown by the solar wind.
These two theories are only theories created from records of research that has been done on the Planet Mercury. To test the truth of this theory, there must be further research by sending a spacecraft that is resistant to the hot temperatures of Planet Mercury so that it is able to approach Planet Mercury and examine the entire surface of this planet.
East just before sunrise and can see it again after sunset at an inclination of about twenty-eight degrees from the Sun. That very small angle makes us only able to enjoy or see this Planet Mercury in less than an hour since its appearance in that section.