Astronomy - Mercury

Mercury

The fastest planet in our solar system.

The closest planet to the Sun.

And because of that,

We don't have a lot of info on it.

But here's a little of what we do know:

1.  The 'sky' on Mercury is black even when it's facing the sun.

Why?  There's no atmosphere on Mercury to reflect blue light, or any other color light for that matter.

So Mercury has a black 'sky' with a very bright white Sun shining on it.

.

2.  Mercury has a year every day and a half.

One Mercury day = 59 Earth days.

One Mercury year = 88 Earth days.

In other words, Mercury spins (rotates) really slow as it is high-tailing it (orbiting) around the Sun.

3.  Mercury is similar to our Moon.

It is around the same size and color.

It is dusty like our Moon.

It even has craters all over it.

Except for one section of Mercury, which is very smooth.

This little fact disproves the solar system being billions of years old.

How? You ask...

In billions of years, every part of Mercury would have been hit by some kind of asteroid or space junk.

It doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it.

So, the likeliness of after billions of years that one rather large section of a planet wouldn't have been hit by an asteroid is very unlikely.

Even scientists agree with that statement, 

but of course they've come up with a reason for why it's smooth:

A volcanic eruption.

Whatever.

(If you haven't figured it out by now, I believe in an Intelligent Designer: God.)

4.  Which brings us to the temperature of Mercury.

You would assume that it was the hottest planet since it is the closest to the Sun.

Not  true.

Mercury's days run around 750* F.

While Mercury's nights are -300* F.

750*, Well that's pretty hot.

Yes.

But not the hottest.

So which one is the hottest??

We'll let you know, 

But not now. :)

5.  Mercury has an elliptical orbit.

Hmm... Funny... So does Pluto.

 You remember Pluto.  The planet that was stripped of it's planethood because of it's elliptical orbit and it's size.  

Yeah, I'm a fan of Pluto.  

It will always be a planet to me.

:)

Ok, back to Mercury.

It is the only recognized planet that has an elliptical orbit.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Actually ALL planets have somewhat of an elliptical orbit,

But all the other ones are very close to circular,

So they call it a circular orbit.

 Our Science Projects

We practiced making craters in flour.

And

We made salt dough Mercurys.

The idea was to make a Mercury model,

Put craters in it by throwing rocks and marbles at it,

And let it dry.

In the end, you have a cratered Mercury model planet.

But you know us,

Our experiments don't always go as planned...

 

First we have to practice making craters

We threw pebbles and marbles into the flour to see how the flour reacted.

And here is our idea of what Mercury's surface would look like.

So, let's get down to making the model.  A little flour.  A little Salt.  A little oil & water.

And a BIG mess.

Making craters using rocks, marbles and toothpicks

That's a big asteroid comparatively!

Our models were quickly flattening.  So, we considered it a half planet model instead. :)

And now, to go bake them in the sun.

And have ants crawl all over them.

And  take chunks of our Mercurys back to the colony.

As I said,

Our experiments never work out perfectly.

But there are some upsides.

1.  The ants created more craters for us.

2.  The ants will be well fed with salt dough tonight!

I guess you could consider that a win/win.

;)