h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The surface area os Mercury is 15 percent that of the Earth's surface - about the same size as North America.

At perihelion, the dayside surface temerature reaches 430 degrees Celsius (806 Fahrenheit) and at aphelion, the surface temperature is a mere 285 degrees Celsius (545 Fahrenheit).

The Sun appears three times bigger on Mercury than it does on Earth.



Don't know if that helps, but there you are...

- X

I like random facts like that. I'll add them...

Cheers!

Oops! One more bit of randomness...

You could mention that Mercury never appears more than 28 degrees from the Sun when viewed from Earth. (Which is why it is so difficult to spot in the evening and morning skies! )

I meant to put that in but forgot...

I could spout some corporate line about that being the beauty of a collaborative guide, but...


Also, check out Pluto. I've added a few thoughts there.

Cool.

Wow innit great to be able to colaborate with someone in another continent!

Yeah. That was one of the things that first drew me to the Guide - being able to interact with people from around the world. That and the fact that I submtted somethig to driving ettiquette which was accepted and went live about a week after I got here.

That bit of approval really got the ball rolling for me...

It took me ages to get an approval, but I was hooked from the moment they asked for my email address...

LOL!
Funny how that works...

It is. I just *knew* that this was the place for me I still remember how excited I was when the first person welcomed me to the guide

I wrote loads before I got an approval...

There was some serious talk, once, about there being room for a planet even closer to the Sun than Mercury, but that since we've never seriously looked for it we may still have a surprise in store. Something that clsoe to the sun wouldf be dificult to detect?

What does astronomical orthodoxy have to say about this? Likely? Unlikely?

Also, the old orthodoxy was that Mercury is fixed on its axis and does not rotate, so that one side bakes forever, one side is frozen forever, and there is a twilight zone between the two that may just be warm enough to sustain life (sci-fi books have been written on this premis)

But i hear that this isn't true and that the planet does in fact rotate, so everything is scoured alternately by fire and ice?