Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Universe: The Inner Planets

The Universe : MERCURY & VENUS: The Inner Planets
History Channel
Season. 1 Episode. 07



http://www.history.com/shows/the-universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Universe_%28TV_series%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FeF1PmTZE


EXCERPTS:

"Along with Earth and Mars, Mercury and Venus
make up our inner Solar System."

VENUS
6th LARGEST PLANET
DISTANCE FROM EARTH  = 26,000,000 MILES
ONE YEAR = 225 EARTH DAYS
150 LBS ON EARTH = 136 LBS ON VENUS


"Venus has a very slow rotation.
And it has what we call 'retrograde rotation'.
So it spins backward compared to the direction of spin of all the other planets."
Because of this retrograde rotation the Sun rises in the West
and sets in the East."

And the Vunusian days are long ones.
One day of Venus = 8 Earth months."


"With the surface temperature of 900 F,
Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System."

VENUS IS HOT DUE TO GREENHOUSE EFFECT.
"The unforgiving heat wave is created by a process called the 'greenhouse effect.'".
"Greenhouse effect that everybody's talking here now with global warming,
was actually discovered on Venus."


"CO2 makes up 95% of the Venusian atmosphere.


"Each spark of light (of lightning) contains 100 million volts of electricity.
Lightning occurs on both Earth and Venus
when electrical charges store up enough energy until they release a spark.

On average, lightning hits the Earth more than 3.1 billion times a year.
The number of time lightning hits the ground on Venus... zero.

The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 90 times greater than on Earth,
because the weigh of the atmosphere created by gases is heavier.
This prevents Venusian lightning from hitting hard ground,
instead, it is restrained to the cloud."


Venus is the most reflective planet, 80% of sun light reflects.


MAXWELL MONTES, 35,000 ft high. (larger anything on earth)



MERCURY:

"
CLOSEST TO SUN: 36,000,000 MILES
NO MOONS
NO ATMOSPHERE
VISIBLE TO NAKED EYE DURING TWILIGHT HOURS.

ORBIT THE SUN = 88 EARTH DAYS = FASTEST OF ANY PLANET
SPIN ON ITS OWN AXIS = 180 EARTH DAYS = SLOWEST
"This means a year on Mercury is shorter than a day."

"For 6 months, the side exposed to the Sun reached 800 F,
On the other side, the temperature drops to -300 F."


"Despite its close proximity to the Sun,
Mercury is a bit of a black sheep in the planetary family.

Its skies always seem like starry nights.

The skies would be black,
The reason we have blue skies on the Earth
because of our atmosphere.
Nitrogen scatters light preferentially in the blue,
and so that's why the sky looks blue.

Mercury doesn't have an atmosphere so the sky would be black.


Mariner 10, 1974


ICE, Mercury a hottest body of solar system, it has ice at polar regions.
Ice could have come by Comets.

 _________________________________

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