Mercury's Spin-Orbit Resonance (Animation)
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- čas přidán 2. 03. 2023
- This is an animation we created for our episode about the planet Mercury, but we thought it might be helpful on its own. In the animation, the green light is a simple way to mark when a full rotation has happened. The astronaut is simply there to help you see Mercury's rotation. The yellow line is the zenith of the sun's light to help you mark the solar days.
Mercury is tidally locked with the sun in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, meaning that it rotates on its axis exactly 3 times for every two trips around the sun. Three sidereal days every two years.
A year on Mercury (the time it takes to orbit the sun once) is only 88 days. A single solar day (the time it takes for the sun to be in the same position in the sky on Mercury) takes 176 earth days. So its solar day is twice as long as its year. And while most planets in our solar system have fairly circular orbits, Mercury has an elliptical orbit. At its closet, or perihelion, Mercury is 29 million miles from the sun (47 million km) and at its farthest, or aphelion, it’s as far as 43 million miles (70 million km). As this happens, Mercury’s spin (its sidereal day) is constant, but the position of the sun in Mercury's sky speeds up, slows down, and even goes backwards sometimes!
So here are the highlights about Mercury's unique orbit:
Mercury’s orbit is highly elliptical.
Its year is 88 earth days.
Its Solar Day is 176 earth days.
Its Sidereal Day is 88 earth days.
Its tidally locked in a 3:2 spin-to-orbit resonance.
We hope this animation is helpful!
Watch our explanation episode about Mercury: • Planet Mercury: The cl... - Věda a technologie
Great animation. I have a PhD in this stuff and I still get confused by Mercury's spin orbit resonance
Appreciate it! It such an amazing and yet confusing situation, I essentially made this video just so I could better understand what was going on. Hopefully it helps!
Very Good Animation. I get it, day time isn't eqaul to night time.
Good job
Cool
It is incredibly! Can I use it in my video? I will provide all the information about you
Of course!
@@DigitalAstronaut Oh, great! Thank you!
It would be very odd, could we ever live there.
There should be a fault on the end of the video with the solar days. The timer goes uo to 2 after an half solar day/one mercury year. Because 2 mercury years are one solar mercury day. I hope my notice was right and you could maybe correct the mistake:) kind regards...
There is no mistake. If you read up on the difference between solar and sidereal days it will help you.
Does it has any relation with Einstein Weird Orbit ? If yes, can i use it in my video?
So if you’re talking about how Mercury’s orbit rotates overtime due to general relativity, unfortunately my video here doesn’t really demonstrate that effect. But if you find a use for my video, please use it! Just give my channel credit.
OK bro... Thanks... ❤🙏
I still don’t understand. Why does the green coordinate not move? Is mercury’s same side looks at the sun all the time, or not?
The green line is where our little astronaut was standing in the beginning of the animation. If you pause the video and move it to 0:00 you would see it.
The yellow line shows where the sun is directly overhead. When the animation starts, that's where the astronaut is standing, but as the planet spins that changes.
Oh I see! Thanks 😊.