ipl-logo

Mercury's Surface Research Paper

545 Words3 Pages

Mercury 's surface is extremely barren. Its proximity to the sun and its lack of an atmosphere mean that this planet 's surface is hot and dry. The surface is heavily cratered, having been hit by many rocky bodies. With no geologic activity to re-cover the surface, it will remain cratered, rocky, and barren for the remainder of its lifetime. Every thing is still, due to lack of wind, which also makes it very hot. Rocks and dust litter this tiny planet. It 's surface is extremely similar to our own moon, only with extreme temperature variations. There are no water deposits and no storms on Mercury; it simply floats stagnant through space. Brown and barren, tortured by the extreme heat of the sun, this planet 's surface geology is limited.

Venus 's atmosphere is extremely thick compared to the one surrounding our own planet. While Earth 's atmosphere works as a buffer, keeping the planet at just the right temperature, the atmosphere on Venus is so thick that it traps most of the heat from the sun, resulting in extreme temperature variations on the surface. Made of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, …show more content…

Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, named, respectively, fear and panic, after the sons of Ares and Aphrodite. They are both small, irregularly shaped rocky bodies. Phobos is larger by several kilometers and also has larger craters, some stretching as far as 28 kilometers long and nearly as wide. However, Deimos is also home to very large craters. They have very low densities, which suggests that these moons were 'captured ' asteroids and did not form with their mother planet. They are possibly remnants of the very early solar system. They may have even been one large body at a point early on in the formation of the solar system, and have since split apart. They both have very dark surfaces, making them hard to study. It is possible that Phobos will collide with the planet itself in a relatively short time, due to the way it reacts with the planet 's

More about Mercury's Surface Research Paper

Open Document