Wednesday, February 24, 2016

On this planet, the Sun rises every two years

On Earth, the sun rises every day. However, on other planets, it happens not always do so. Mercury, for example, the Sun rises every two years. Strange, isn't it.

Mercury takes 58 days to rotate on its axis. One day on the planet within the 46.0012 million km and 69.8169 million km from the Sun is thus the equivalent of 58 Earth days.
Mercury planet profile. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1X8ymP)
Interestingly, due to the proximity to the Sun and its rotation, the morning sun do not show up every 58 days. The distance between the dawn and the next was 176 days.

Mercury takes 88 days on Earth days to circle the Sun. So, to say, Sunrise happens in every 2 years on Mercury. As a consequence some sort of oddity day on Mercury, morning, noon, afternoon, and night does not happen every day, but once a year. Referring to the count of time on Earth, daylight can last for days.
Days at Mercury. Morning, daylight, evening, night occurs not every day but once a year. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1X8x8X)
If the sun rises on the first day, then the middle of the day just happened on the 44th day (according to the count of time on Earth). Evening took place on the 73rd day, and the sun will set on the 88th day.

Afternoon will last until the 103th day. Middle of the night occurred on the 132nd day. Early days will occur on the 161st day. The sun will rise again on the 176th day.

This calculation applies to all regions of Mercury, besides poles. On its polar, sun light is always dimmed. So, one might say, on the polar regions of Mercury experienced dusk forever. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | UNVERSE TODAY]
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