Uploads from Dr. Becky

Currently Playing: Why send a mission to Mercury? #shorts

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at 40% of the distance from Earth to the Sun. That means it’s a lot warmer than Earth, reaching ~430°C during the day. But it’s got very little atmosphere, because it’s been so cooked by the Sun, meaning it gets down to -170°C at night. Giving it the biggest day/night temperature swing of any planet in the solar system. It also orbits the Sun faster than any other planet in the Solar System at 29 miles per second, with a year, or the time it takes to orbit the Sun being just 88 Earth days long. But its day, the time taken to spin on its axis, is more than double that taking 176 Earth days. For every 2 Mercury days that pass, three Mercury years pass in the same time frame. It’s also tiny, just sneaking in at 1/3 the width of Earth, but 80% of Mercury is made up of its dense iron core. Making it very different from all the other planets in the solar system, and we don’t know why. That’s just one of the many unexplained questions we have about Mercury, hence ESA’s Bepi Colombo mission. Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: martino.freelance@gmail.com Video produced by Marina Hui & Dr Becky Smethurst --- 📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): http://lnk.to/DrBecky --- 👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): https://dr-becky.teemill.com/ --- 🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive --- 🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video! --- 👩🏽‍💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars. http://drbecky.uk.com