Categories: MercuryVideos

How Long is a Day on Mercury?

1/3 the distance from the Sun than Earth, it should be no surprise that a day on Mercury is a real scorcher with temperatures soaring over 400 ºC. But in addition to its solar proximity it also has an extremely slow rotation: a single day on Mercury is 58.6 Earth days long… and you thought your Mondays lasted forever!

To be even more precise, for every 2 Mercury years, 3 Mercury days pass — a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, caused by the planet’s varying elliptical orbit. (This also makes for some interesting motions of the Sun in Mercury’s sky.)

To illustrate this, UK’s The Open University has published a new video in their 60 Second Adventures in Astronomy series… check it out above (and see more of their excellent and amusing animations here.)

Video: The Open University. Narrated by David Mitchell.

Jason Major

A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

Recent Posts

Are Fast Radio Bursts Caused by Interstellar Objects Crashing Into Neutron Stars?

Astronomers have only been aware of fast radio bursts for about two decades. These are…

5 hours ago

Here’s How to Weigh Gigantic Filaments of Dark Matter

How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully,…

7 hours ago

How Could Astronauts Call for Help from the Moon?

Exploring the Moon poses significant risks, with its extreme environment and hazardous terrain presenting numerous…

19 hours ago

There Was a 15 Minute Warning Before Tonga Volcano Exploded

Volcanoes are not restricted to the land, there are many undersea versions. One such undersea…

20 hours ago

Main Sequence and White Dwarf Binaries are Hiding in Plain Sight

Some binary stars are unusual. They contain a main sequence star like our Sun, while…

21 hours ago

What a Misplaced Meteorite Told Us About Mars

11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is…

23 hours ago