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How Long is a Day on Mercury?
1/3 closer to the Sun than Earth is, it should be no surprise that a day on Mercury is a real scorcher, with temperatures soaring to almost 400 ºC. But in addition to its solar proximity it also has an extremely slow rotation: a single day on Mercury is 58.6 Earth days long… and you thought your Mondays lasted forever!
To be even more precise, for every 2 Mercury years, 3 Mercury days pass — a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, caused by the planet’s varying elliptical orbit. (This also makes for some interesting motions of the Sun in Mercury’s sky.)
To illustrate this, UK’s The Open University has published a new video in their 60 Second Adventures in Astronomy series… check it out above (and see more of their excellent and amusing animations here.)
Video: The Open University. Narrated by David Mitchell.
© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: animation, Mercury, orbit, rotation, Solar System, The Open University, video
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2012-12-27 19:01:09
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/99170/how-long-is-a-day-on-mercury-2/
Source:
Q: How Long is a Day on Mercury?
A: A Day.