Mercury and Me: An Intimate Memoir by the Man Freddie Loved

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In astronomy, the words "rotation" and "revolution" have different meanings. "Rotation" is the turning of a body about an axis that passes through the body, as in "Earth rotates once a day." "Revolution" is motion around a centre that is external to the body, usually in orbit, as in "Earth takes a year for each revolution around the Sun." The verbs "rotate" and "revolve" mean doing rotation and revolution, respectively.

Colombo, Giuseppe (1965). "Rotational Period of the Planet Mercury". Nature. 208 (5010): 575. Bibcode: 1965Natur.208..575C. doi: 10.1038/208575a0. S2CID 4213296.

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Heath, Sir Thomas (1921). A History of Greek Mathematics. Vol.II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp.vii, 273. Kelley, David H.; Milone, E. F.; Aveni, Anthony F. (2004). Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy. Birkhäuser. ISBN 978-0-387-95310-6.

Reaching Mercury from Earth poses significant technical challenges, because it orbits so much closer to the Sun than Earth. A Mercury-bound spacecraft launched from Earth must travel over 91million kilometres (57million miles) into the Sun's gravitational potential well. Mercury has an orbital speed of 47.4km/s (29.5mi/s), whereas Earth's orbital speed is 29.8km/s (18.5mi/s). [111] Therefore, the spacecraft must make a larger change in velocity ( delta-v) to get to Mercury and then enter orbit, [186] as compared to the delta-v required for, say, Mars planetary missions. It is likely that this magnetic field is generated by a dynamo effect, in a manner similar to the magnetic field of Earth. [104] [105] This dynamo effect would result from the circulation of the planet's iron-rich liquid core. Particularly strong tidal heating effects caused by the planet's high orbital eccentricity would serve to keep part of the core in the liquid state necessary for this dynamo effect. [106] [107] a b "ESA gives go-ahead to build BepiColombo". European Space Agency. February 26, 2007 . Retrieved May 29, 2008. I was devastated by what was happening to us. I know Freddie would have been furious. Garden Lodge, once a place of such warmth and care, was now about to resemble Fort Knox.

My Book Notes

Mercury was an enigma and a chameleon, and that is confirmed in this book. So while Hutton’s recollections are often heartfelt, and full of warmth and affection, you can’t help but feel that some of Mercury will be unknowable. At times, Hutton is quite brief in his details about certain events, though that may also be because he seems rather protective of their relationship (and rightly so).

Correia, Alexandre C. M.; Laskar, Jacques (2004). "Mercury's capture into the 3/2 spin-orbit resonance as a result of its chaotic dynamics". Nature. 429 (6994): 848–850. Bibcode: 2004Natur.429..848C. doi: 10.1038/nature02609. PMID 15215857. S2CID 9289925. Ground-based telescope observations of Mercury reveal only an illuminated partial disk with limited detail. The Hubble Space Telescope cannot observe Mercury at all, due to safety procedures that prevent its pointing too close to the Sun. [142] Because the shift of 0.15 revolutions in a year makes up a seven-year cycle (0.15 × 7 ≈ 1.0), in the seventh year, Mercury follows almost exactly (earlier by 7 days) the sequence of phenomena it showed seven years before. [143] The observed perihelion precession of Mercury is 5,600 arcseconds (1.5556°) per century relative to Earth, or 574.10 ±0.65arcseconds per century [138] relative to the inertial ICRF. Newtonian mechanics, taking into account all the effects from the other planets and including 0.0254 arcsecond per century due to the oblateness of the Sun, predicts a precession of 5,557 arcseconds (1.5436°) per century relative to Earth, or 531.63 ±0.69arcseconds per century relative to ICRF. [138] In the early 20th century, Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity provided the explanation for the observed precession, by formalizing gravitation as being mediated by the curvature of spacetime. The effect is small: just 42.980 ±0.001arcseconds per century (or 0.43 arcsecond per year, or 0.1035 arcsecond per orbital period) for Mercury; it therefore requires a little over 12.5 million orbits, or 3 million years, for a full excess turn. Similar, but much smaller, effects exist for other Solar System bodies: 8.6247 arcseconds per century for Venus, 3.8387 for Earth, 1.351 for Mars, and 10.05 for 1566 Icarus. [139] [140] Observation Image mosaic by Mariner 10, 1974 In ancient China, Mercury was known as "the Hour Star" ( Chen-xing 辰星). It was associated with the direction north and the phase of water in the Five Phases system of metaphysics. [155] Modern Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cultures refer to the planet literally as the "water star" ( 水星), based on the Five elements. [156] [157] [158] Hindu mythology used the name Budha for Mercury, and this god was thought to preside over Wednesday. [159] The god Odin (or Woden) of Germanic paganism was associated with the planet Mercury and Wednesday. [160] The Maya may have represented Mercury as an owl (or possibly four owls; two for the morning aspect and two for the evening) that served as a messenger to the underworld. [161] Baumgardner, Jeffrey; Mendillo, Michael; Wilson, Jody K. (2000). "A Digital High-Definition Imaging System for Spectral Studies of Extended Planetary Atmospheres. I. Initial Results in White Light Showing Features on the Hemisphere of Mercury Unimaged by Mariner10". The Astronomical Journal. 119 (5): 2458–2464. Bibcode: 2000AJ....119.2458B. doi: 10.1086/301323. S2CID 17361371.Davies, M. E.; Dwornik, S. E.; Gault, D. E.; Strom, R. G. (1978). NASA Atlas of Mercury. NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office. Weidenschilling, Stuart J. (1987). "Iron/silicate fractionation and the origin of Mercury". Icarus. 35 (1): 99–111. Bibcode: 1978Icar...35...99W. doi: 10.1016/0019-1035(78)90064-7. Davies, Merton E.; Dwornik, Stephen E.; Gault, Donald E.; Strom, Robert G. (1978). "Surface Mapping". Atlas of Mercury. NASA Office of Space Sciences . Retrieved May 28, 2008. Elkins-Tanton, Linda T. (2006). Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and the Outer Solar System. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-0729-5.

Scientists see Mercury in a new light". Science Daily. February 28, 2008 . Retrieved April 7, 2008. Greek Names of the Planets". April 25, 2010 . Retrieved July 14, 2012. Ermis is the Greek name of the planet Mercury, which is the closest planet to the Sun. It is named after the Greek God of commerce, Ermis or Hermes, who was also the messenger of the Ancient Greek gods. See also the Greek article about the planet. Liu, Han-Shou; O'Keefe, John A. (1965). "Theory of Rotation for the Planet Mercury". Science. 150 (3704): 1717. Bibcode: 1965Sci...150.1717L. doi: 10.1126/science.150.3704.1717. PMID 17768871. S2CID 45608770. Dantowitz, Ronald F.; Teare, Scott W.; Kozubal, Marek J. (2000). "Ground-based High-Resolution Imaging of Mercury". Astronomical Journal. 119 (4): 2455–2457. Bibcode: 2000AJ....119.2455D. doi: 10.1086/301328. S2CID 121483006. Golden, Leslie M. (1977). A Microwave Interferometric Study of the Subsurface of the Planet Mercury (Thesis). University of California, Berkeley. Bibcode: 1977PhDT.........9G.Categories for Naming Features on Planets and Satellites". US Geological Survey . Retrieved August 20, 2011.