ASTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Terrestrial Planet, Orbital Period, Bow Shocks In Astrophysics
Document Summary
Lecture 4: overview of the inner planets part 1. Named hermes by the greeks, renamed mercury later by the romans. Thought was star, noticed many twistings and toilings 6. Phases first observed telescopically by hewelcke, first half of. First serious observation made by herschel in late 18th century. Instead of making telescopes wider, people used to make them longer (hevelius" 1641 was longest ever) Too hot, particles moving too fast, will escape. Difficult to infer much information due to small maximum elongation from sun. 87 days to orbit: 43 in morning, 43 in night. No more than 20 degrees from earth. Phases easy to see, but little amount of detail. Shadows longer here, sometimes features" shadows will actually appear. Above: first images of mercury, using registax features. The rest of the planet is not lit by the sun. Mercury is 3-4 time brighter in the second image. By far first probe to approach mercury and.
