Life

I don't believe there is any life on planet Mercury. It is far too close to the sun for water to stay in a liquid state and for any known living organism to survive. Although recently, water has been discovered on the bottoms of craters and in the poles of mercury. It is not in a liquid state, it is ice. Mercury has a modest magnetic field that is approximately aligned with the planet's axis of rotation. The field is a planetary dipole, and is thought to be generated in a manner similar to the way the Earth is though to generate its magnetic field - dynamo action at or around the core. It doesn't really have much of an atmosphere because its gravity is too weak to keep one. However it does have a very unstable one containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium and potassium.



Advanced life forms as we know them require liquid water. Since the mid 1960's, we've known about the presence of frozen water at the Martian poles. There is liquid water on Mars, however, it has never been proven. Until liquid water is found on the Red Planet, the odds of any life forms or microbes abiding on Mars is extremely remote. Mars is located in between Earth and Jupiter. I believe that there is frozen water on Mars, and that there is maybe a living organism on Mars, just maybe. Mars is pretty barren though, and seems like the frozen water is hard to get a hold of. I don't think there is life there now, but maybe in a few thousand years, there might be.

Distance Blog Post

Space is measured by km, AU, and ly. AU is the distance from the sun to the Earth and is used to measure the distance between planets and other masses in the solar system. As for kilometer, which is used to measure smaller things on Earth mostly. A ly (light year), is the distance light can travel in one year. Light moves at a velocity of about 300,000 kilometers (km) each second. So in one year, it can travel about 10 trillion km. More precisely, one light-year is equal to 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers. We use light years to measure objects in our universe much much farther away than anything we can imagine if we measure the distance with anything but a light year.

The distance from Mercury to the Earth varies as both the planets orbit the Sun. When closest to the Sun, Mercury is about 77 million kilometers from the Earth. When its the farthest, it's about 222 million kilometers. It would take about 61/2 years with the speeds we can reach today. Humans have never traveled to Mercury. I doubt they ever will until technology is greatly improved and we can build a space shuttle that can withstand such heat and is light enough to lift off of Earth.

Mercury's Formation

The bit of nebula that formed Mercury formed a dense metallic core with a thin silicate crust on the surface. Asteroids bombarded the surface and internal lava flowed out and formed a newer crust. Not long after, Mercury's core cooled down and shrunk to a smaller size, resulting with the outer crust cracking. Another wave of lava ensues, covering the old crust.
Smaller meteorites bombarded Mercury, forming a dusty surface known as the regolith. On occasion, large asteroids would crash into Mercury creating bright rayed craters.

Silicate:
a salt in which the anion contains both silicon and oxygen, esp. one of the anion SiO 4 2−. • any of the many minerals consisting primarily of SiO 4 2− combined with metal ions, forming a major component of the rocks of the earth's crust.

Metallic:
of, relating to, or resembling metal or metals : metallic alloys | a curious metallic taste. • (of sound) resembling that produced by metal objects striking each other; sharp and ringing : the terrifying, metallic clamor of the fire-engine bell. • (of a person's voice); emanating or as if emanating via an electronic medium : a metallic voice rasped tinnily from a concealed speaker. • having the sheen or luster of metal : a metallic green sports car.

Crater:
a large, bowl-shaped cavity in the ground or on the surface of a planet or the moon, typically one caused by an explosion or the impact of a meteorite or other celestial body. • a large pit or hollow forming the mouth of a volcano. • a cavity or hole in any surface.

Planet?

As weird as this sounds, Pluto is not a planet. Why? Because Pluto doesn't clear its orbit of debris. Mercury is a planet because it orbits a star, has a gravitational pull to control the bodies in its surrounding area (or clears its orbit of debris), and is spherical. Pluto meets all the other requirements of being labeled as a 'planet', but it still can't quite fit under that category.

The Size of Mercury

The diameter of Mercury is 4,878 km. You could put about three Mercury's side by side to get the diameter of Earth. The diameter of Mercury is only 38% the diameter of Earth. Mercury could possibly fit into Earth about 2 or 1 1/2 times.

AMNH Experience

On October 26th, our class went to The Museum of Natural History. We went to the Hall of Meteorites, the Big Bang movie, and an astronomy movie. In the Hall of Meteorites, we learned what a meteorite is, and what a chrondule is. A meteorite is the remains of a meteor, and chrondules are pieces of dust formed together into a crystal. A chrondule tells us how old the solar system is. We also learned that a shooting star is actually tiny grains of dust that burn up in Earth's atmosphere. In the Big Bang movie, we learned what life was like before the Big Bang. One second before the Big Bang, everything was very hot and compact. The universe now is much bigger than the universe one hour after the Big Bang. The movie was very interesting although I still wonder how long the Big Bang actually was. After The Big Bang movie we went to the bottom floor of the Rose Center where I learned some new things about Mercury. I learned that Mercury is only 40% larger than the moon and that Mercury's surface reaches 470 degrees Celsius during the day, and is minus 180 degrees Celsius at night. I still wonder who discovered my body since the exact person isn't clear. After that, we went to see the astronomy movie. The movie was mostly about what the stars and planets were, and just the general layout of space.

Who discovered Mercury?

Mercury's been observed for thousands of years, as early as the time of the Babylonians, who mentioned it in writing around 3000 years ago. The exact person who first discovered the planet is unknown, and is therefore indeterminate.