| Term | Definition |
|---|
| When Mercury is seen best | during the day(from space) when it's highest in the sky |
| Characteristics of Mercury's orbit | highly elliptical, inclined plane |
| Mercury transits | 13-14 times every century |
| 3-to-2 spin coupling | Mercury's rotation: the planet spins three times every 2 revolutions around the sun |
| rotation rate | 59 days |
| Mercurian day | 88 days |
| Giovanni Schiaparelli | rotation rate first measured by observing faint features on the surface, he got it wrong b/c he observed every third greatest eastern or western elongation which would mean that he always views the same side and therefore concluded that Mercury's orbit was synchronous |
| temperature of Mercury | very hot in the day 700k (it has three earth months to heat up) and the nights are extremely cold 100k |
| Mariner 10 | the only space craft to be sent to Mercury |
| what we're learned from Mariner 10 | heavily cratered (intercrater plains[similar to the moons maria]), has scarps(long cliffs that appear to be cracks that formed from as the surface cooled and contracted), Caloris Basin(ring of mts.), hilly terrain(opposite Cal. B.), possibility of water ice, information on the interior |
| Mercury's magnetic field | very weak, only 1% as strong as Earth's |
| internal structure | mantle and HUGE iron core(75% of its diameter) |
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