Astronomy 223 Tuesday, Thursday 3:50 5:00 pm Tom Burbine tburbinemtholyoke.edu Darby Dyar mdyarMtHol

1
Astronomy 223Tuesday, Thursday350 500
pmTom Burbinetburbine_at_mtholyoke.eduDarby
Dyarmdyar_at_MtHolyoke.edu
2
Presentation Schedule

• Presentations on Nov. 6 and Nov. 15 have been
  moved to a leter date

3
Terrestrial Planets

• Have different surface properties
• Due to size of the planet
• Distance from Sun
• Speed of Planetary Rotation

4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
Goldilocks Principle

• The Goldilocks Principle can be summed up neatly
  as "Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, and Earth
  is just right.

7
(No Transcript)
8
Mercury/Venus

• Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun
• Venus is next closest

9
Mercury

• orbit 0.38 AU from Sun
• diameter 4,880 km (38.3 of Earth)
• mass 3.30 x 1023 kg (5.5 of Earth)
• temperature
• 90 K (minimum)
• 440 K (average)
• 700 K (maximum)
• Satellites Zero

10
Mercury

• Videos
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/mer
  cury/index.shtml
• http//www.gecdsb.on.ca/dg/astro/html/Mercury.htm
  l

11
Mariner 10

• The only spacecraft to approach Mercury was
  NASA's Mariner 10 (1974-1975).

12
(No Transcript)
13
Caloris Basin
14
Caloris Basin(Some of the hill are 1800 meters
tall)
15
Caloris Basin

• A basin was defined by Hartmann and Kuiper (1962)
  as a "large circular depression with distinctive
  concentric rings and radial lineaments."
• Others consider any crater larger than 200
  kilometers a basin.
• The Caloris basin is 1,300 kilometers in
  diameter, and was probably caused by a projectile
  larger than 100 kilometers in size.
• The impact produced concentric mountain rings
  three kilometers high and sent ejecta 600 to 800
  kilometers across the planet.

16
(No Transcript)
17
Weird Terrain
800 km
18
Mercury has high density

• Its density is 5.44 g/cm3 which is comparable to
  Earth's 5.52g/cm3 density.
• In an uncompressed state, Mercury's density is
  5.5 g/cm3 where Earth's is only 4.0 g/cm3.

19
(No Transcript)
20
http//www.psrd.hawaii.edu/WebImg/MercuryCore.gif
21
Messenger

• Mission to Mercury
• Launched August 3, 2004
• Flyby Mercury in 2008 and 2009
• Orbits Mercury in 2011

22

• http//www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/i
  ndex.html

23
(No Transcript)
24
http//spaceguard.rm.iasf.cnr.it/tumblingstone/iss
ues/num6/img/mercury-temp-small.gif
25
Spectra of Mercury
26
Mercurys Surface

• Made of Enstatite (MgSiO3)
• Made of material like the Lunar Highlands
• Plagioclase feldspar - CaAl2Si2O8

27
(No Transcript)
28
Any Questions?