The solar system consists of the Sun; the nine planets, all the satellites of the planets, the comets and the asteroids, and the interplanetary space.
SUN
Our Sun may look like all soft and fluffy, but its not. It is an extremely large ball of bubbling hot gas, mostly hydrogen gas.
The above picture was taken in a specific color of light emitted by hydrogen gas called Hydrogen-alpha. Granules cover the solar photosphere surface like a shag carpet, interrupted by bright regions containing dark sunspots. Visible at the left edge is a solar prominence.
The Sun glows because it is hot, but it is not on fire. Fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and there is very little oxygen on the Sun. The energy source of our Sun is the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium deep within its core.
Astronomers are still working to understand, however, why so few neutrinos are measured from the Sun's core.
Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. Mercury's diameter is about 4800 km, while the Moon's is slightly less at about 3500 km (compared with about 12,700 km for the Earth). But Mercury is unique in many ways.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at about 1/3 the radius of the Earth's orbit. As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius to an unbearably hot 400 degrees Celsius.
The place nearest the Sun in Mercury's orbit changes slightly each orbit - a fact used by Albert Einstein to help verify the correctness of his then newly discovered theory of gravity: General Relativity.
The above picture was taken by the only spacecraft ever to pass Mercury: Mariner 10 in 1974.
I can be a Problem Solver
2819 Columbine Place
Nashville TN 37204
Business Hours - 8-7pm
