Talk:Mercury (planet)/Archive 3

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mercury doesn't seem to be gravitationally locked to the sun as said in the intro

Hello, I was looking at several articles on Mercury including this page which is a great source of information but I thought I would mention this to you because you may want to double check and correct it. On this website for example https://www.space.com/28356-how-to-live-on-mercury.html it explains that we used to think mercury was tidally locked but scientists no longer think so Here is the extract " Scientists once believed Mercury was tidally locked with the sun, meaning that one side of the planet always faces the sun because it takes the same amount of time to rotate around its axis as it does to revolve around the star. But we now know that Mercury's day lasts almost 59 Earth days and its year stretches for about 88 Earth days." Hope this will help, Best ameliebeau - July 6, 2017 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ameliebeau (talk • contribs) 09:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@Ameliebeau: Hello! What you're talking about is one specific case of gravitational locking, which happens for objects with near-circular orbits, called the 1:1 spin–orbit resonance (so named because the ratio of the planet's day to its year is 1:1). Mercury is gravitationally locked to the Sun, but in a more complicated way due to its eccentric orbit. It is instead locked in the 3:2 spin–orbit resonance; its day is 2/3 the length of its year. We clarify this in the introduction immediately after referring to Mercury's gravitational locking, so I think the reason for your misunderstanding is because most people somewhat sloppily use the unqualified term "gravitational lock" to refer to the 1:1 resonance as it is the most common. In any case, thank you for your suggestion to improve Wikipedia! Double sharp (talk) 10:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Wrong image text

The image text for the transit of mercury image is incorrect:

"Transit of Mercury. Mercury is the small dot in the lower center, in front of the Sun. The dark area on the left of the solar disk is a sunspot."

Image description says:

"Mercury is visible as a black dot below and to the left of center, and sunspot AR2542 is prominently visible above center (as well as AR2543 below it and AR2544 on the upper left edge of the Sun)."

This seems to make more sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.80.103.108 (talk) 05:48, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! I've edited the caption; it should be better now. Double sharp (talk) 06:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Dates

So what's going on with the recent reverting of date formats, this has taken it back to the versions where the reference dates both have the American and the British variety and I have found this. I will try this one more time. Iggy (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Please, also see this, last paragraph. Re-reverting. Purgy (talk) 12:12, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
Purgy Purgatorio OK yes, I didn't see that. Iggy (talk) 12:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Not enough contentious to discuss THIS

@Arianewiki1, feel free to prefer for rational numbers x > 1 and positive measures A and B the formulation 

A is x times smaller than B

to the statement 

B is x times bigger than A

when the approximation holds.

Certainly, I won't discuss this here, nor which assumptions this needs, nor if this were contentious, and definiteley not the topic "The is worst". Enjoy your ownership! Purgy (talk) 09:03, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that "1.5 times closer than" doesn't really seem to mean anything sensible, in isolation. What would "1.5 times closer than 1000 km" be, for instance? It does seem like confusing wording to use, and unnecessarily so. -- Begoon 09:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Purgy Purgatorio:@Begoon:
Sorry. Saying "The is worst" is not fair regarding a WP:GF, and if you read it as WP:PA my apologies. This was never personal.
However, I meant this was the worst rearrangement of words. Perihelion and aphelion are opposites, but in astronomical usage, perihelion also defines the set time (epoch) of the orientation of the orbit (and also calculating orbits from orbital elements like planets or binary stars), and therefore should always be first. Hence, "...so at perihelion, Mercury is about 1.5 times closer to the Sun than at aphelion." Saying "...so at aphelion, Mercury's distance to the Sun is about 1.5 times that at perihelion." ignores the convention. Grammatically what you say is right, but it in this instance, is overridden by this convention.
If you do have another way of expressing this and keep perihelion first, I'd gladly relinquish "ownership" (which was never my intent.) Thanks. Arianewiki1 (talk) 23:26, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Well, I'll take your word for the "convention", but I don't think following it should mean we have to make a grammatically meaningless statement. If you really have to have perihelion first then it seems the only sensible comparison would be that, at perihelion, Mercury's distance from the Sun is only about two-thirds (or 66%) of its distance at aphelion. I guess - Mercury's distance from the Sun increases by about 50% between perihelion and aphelion - or something similar could work, if you want to stress the "half" aspect, but it sounds a bit contrived. -- Begoon 02:42, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
"Not enough contentious to discuss THIS" Actually, I am grateful for the issue. There are systemic issues here with all the astronomy infoboxes with orbits, which puts aphelion in front of perihelion. I've opened a discussion here.[1] Arianewiki1 (talk) 02:27, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

@Begoon:@Purgy Purgatorio: Thank you very much Begoon for your very positive suggestion which I have now adopted in the article. Alternative viewpoints like this sometimes overcomes the other's occasional mindblocks. A five star contribution. Cheers. Arianewiki1 (talk) 07:31, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome, and I understand exactly what you mean. -- Begoon 07:48, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

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Old source pre-MESSENGER

At the first close approach, instruments detected a magnetic field, to the great surprise of planetary geologists—Mercury's rotation was expected to be much too slow to generate a significant dynamo effect. [...] The origin of Mercury's magnetic field is still the subject of several competing theories.[162] - this source, 162, is from the 1970s from before the second mission to Mercury made scans of the planet's magnetism and narrowed down the theories significantly. Consider adding the information found in this nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/485052a or this article: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009JE003528 which both elaborate on leading theories. A mention of the double snow state would perhaps be in order. (121.44.38.137 (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2018 (UTC))

The magnetic field is described in a separate section. This section describes the history of observations with spacecraft, and what was known at the time. The origin of the magnetic field remained controversial for about 30 years after the Mariner 10 encounters. I modified the statement and added a reference. JeanLucMargot (talk) 03:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 April 2018

2601:C6:CC80:168F:A4C9:CA4C:71D9:2DD4 (talk) 22:39, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

i want to add how many days

 Not done Please read the template above and give context, as "how many days" means little. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. L293D (☎ • ✎) 02:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Updated magnitude range

The new values of brightest and faintest apparent magnitude in the 'infobox' were reported in a peer-reviewed journal article that includes updated equations for computing planetary magnitudes. Those formulas will be used to predict magnitudes for future issues of The Astronomical Almanac published by the U.S. Naval Observatory and Her Majesty’s Nautical Almanac Office. The equations were solved at daily intervals over long periods of time in order to determine the magnitude extremes. As noted in the journal article, the apparent magnitude for Mercury can become extremely large when the planet transits the Sun and it is almost completely backlit. The value of faintest magnitude reported here is for Mercury very near to a transit. The paper in Astronomy and Computing can be located at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ascom.2018.08.002.Planet photometry (talk) 14:10, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 October 2018

Clicking on Venus in the planets section at the bottom takes you to a link for the tranits of Venus by Mercury, which is missing, instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus 143.210.45.53 (talk) 14:18, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I see only one red Venus-link to a non-existing article Transit of Mercury from Venus, which is as it should be, since that link appears under the topic Astronomy/Transits. Such a transit is theoretically possible. The red link allows the article to be created.
Or did you have another red link to Venus in mind? - DVdm (talk) 14:33, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 October 2018

In paragraph 4 of Section 1.3, the conversion of 0.5 nanobars to 0.005 picobars is incorrect. It should be 500 picobars. Astroice7 (talk) 07:03, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: 1 bar = 100000 pascal. The article says that 0.5 nPa = 0.005 picobars. So 0.5 nanopascals = 500 picopascals = 0.005 picobars. - DVdm (talk) 07:07, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Full globe map?

For being a featured article I find it odd that there's no image that has a double hemisphere map of both sides of the planetary sphere. Can someone add one? Ergzay (talk) 10:58, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Dark Side

The article mentions dark side. As Mercury is actually in a 3:2 resonance, shouldn't that changed to be "Night side" instead of "Dark side"?

Jgwinner (talk) 20:42, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. Nightside is better, also one word no two. Arianewiki1 (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Rotational Discrepancy (Resonance)

NASA website declares one circuit of orbit or revolution (1 Mercury year) to be ~88 days. One rotation (1 Mercury day) to be ~59 days. The article states 3 Mercury days to 1 Mercury year. This needs updating.

Quisizyx (talk) 19:26, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The article is correct because it says one solar day. Mercury, like Earth, has two kinds of days, a mean solar day (relative to the Sun) and a stellar day (relative to the stars or inertial space, almost the same as a sidereal day). Both figures you cited, 88 days and 59 days, are relative to the stars, hence a 3:2 resonance. But relative to the Sun Mercury rotates twice a only one half in one year, instead of one and a half times as it does relative to inertial space. — Joe Kress (talk) 23:40, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
I don't see "3 Mercury days to 1 Mercury year". I see "a solar day ... lasts about 176 Earth days" (176 ≈ 2×88 ≈ 3×59) or one solar day in two Mercury years. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:22, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 August 2019

In section "Surface Geology". After " Valleys or valleys are named for" Change: radio telescope facilities. To: abandoned cities (or towns or settlements) of antiquity.

Justification: The reference article [42] was misread, and clearly states they are named after abandoned cities etc. The reference link is correct. The related article "List of geological features on Mercury" is correct. I noticed the discrepancy between the two articles. Rufous Fantail (talk) 14:18, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

 Done Highway 89 (talk) 15:14, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Tiny semi-protected edit request (diameter vs radius)

OK, it's already a bit redundant having both measurements stated, especially as the general sentiment (much that I disagree with it) is to standardise on giving radius only, but... the two figures don't agree with each other, and it's making my brain itch. I'd have already changed it myself but lack the permission. Can we simply have the diameter erased, or if not, at least changed to match the radius (which is the only one of the two which has a citation)? In this case it should be 4,879.4km, plus/minus 2.0km. That is, exactly double the radius. Rather than the extremely rounded-off, error bar bereft stab someone else seems to have blindly taken at it... Ta muchly. 51.7.16.171 (talk) 23:47, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Strength of tidal bulges

The orbit, rotation, and longitude section of this article states that the "varying distance to the Sun leads to Mercury's surface being flexed by tidal bulges raised by the Sun that are about 17 times stronger than the Moon's on Earth." This contradicts Geology of Mercury#Tectonic features, which states that "Mercury's surface is also flexed by significant tidal bulges raised by the Sun—the Sun's tides on Mercury are about 17% stronger than the Moon's on Earth." Furthermore, both articles cite the same source ([2]), but as far as I can tell it does not directly support either statement. (Don't take my word for it as I am not a planetary geologist.) One or both articles need to be corrected! 167.131.0.195 (talk) 23:53, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Proper measurements in sidebar

Most other planet pages use KM for radius, perihelion and so on. Mercury should be fixed so it uses them too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2406:E000:6DF1:1E01:F59D:412C:7F05:4CEB (talk) 01:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

An editor has recently been changing infobox items to miles, ° Fahrenheit, etc., instead of the more usual scientific units; but they're fairly quickly being changed back. Dhtwiki (talk) 11:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Correction Needed

One of the line in the article reads: "On average, Mercury is the closest planet to the Earth,[97] and it is the closest planet to each of the other planets in the Solar System."

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vikrant narang (talk • contribs) 08:51, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Does the article not state the latter (closest to the Sun)? The former statement (closest to each other planet on average) seems unlikely but not necessarily impossible, given how quickly Mercury moves in its orbit (e.g. it must be closer to Neptune than Uranus is when Uranus is on the other side of the solar system). Dhtwiki (talk) 21:34, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Orbit, rotation, and longitude

The articles notes that Mercury is on average the closets planet to Earth, and all the other planets as well. The article should be made more clear to indicate Mercury is closets to a planet, like Uranus, only when ALL the other planets are in opposition or close to that position. I believe that would clarify this point. Dkf12 (talk) 04:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

image policy question

I am trying to help another fellow editor add images from MESSENGER onto the Venus wiki article page, I see here on Mercury that the infobox image is from MESSENGER, are all photos from MESSENGER able to be used per Wikipedia Image use policy? aka is it license free? or Copyright free? Any help at all pointing me in the right direction from image experts would be very appreciated!MaximusEditor (talk) 23:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

satellite wording

there is a sentence in the lede that reads: "The planet has no known natural satellites" -Its not possible for Mercury to have a moon, its too close to the Sun and its gravity , basically Mercury wouldnt be able to keep its own moon in orbit around itself. Maybe we could change that up? Or does anybody have any objections to me changing that up? MaximusEditor (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2020

Please rephrase the following in the first paragraph and any related references thereafter to be put into relative “Earth” terms, e.g. “the equivalent of ___ Earth days”:

“Its orbit around the Sun takes 87.97 days...” 174.78.2.117 (talk) 07:46, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 11:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Galileo's letter to Giuliano de Medici

In this article, it is said that Galileo's telescopes were not powerful enough to see the phases of Mercury. It is said or implied that Giovanni Zupi was the first to see the phases of Mercury and that Zupi did so in 1639, using a telescope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.159.43.9 (talk) 13:06, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

In his letter to Giuliano de Medici of 1/1/1611, Galileo said that he had proved "sensibly" that Venus and Mercury go both sides of the sun, when seen from the earth. I have great difficulty getting the full text of Galileo's letter. The date, 1/1/1611, seems to be in the Gregorian calendar.
See, possibly, Francesco Iovine, Galilei and the New Science , Florence, The New Italy, 1987, p.2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.159.43.9 (talk) 13:30, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
See https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Lettere_(Galileo)/VI . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.241.174.177 (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Correction to Mercury's mantle thickness

I recommend changing the following statement to be more in line with the current understanding of Mercury's internal structure:

"Surrounding the core is a 500–700 km (310–430 mi) mantle consisting of silicates."

Analyses of Mercury's gravity field have shown that the thickness of its silicate layers (both crust and mantle) are likely 420 ± 30 km.[1] Coupled with new estimates of Mercury's crustal thickness distribution approaching an average thickness of 35 km, its average mantle thickness is closer to 385 km. [2][3]

I will have a look at these. Ruslik_Zero 20:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hauck, Steven A.; Margot, Jean-Luc; Solomon, Sean C.; Phillips, Roger J.; Johnson, Catherine L.; Lemoine, Frank G.; Mazarico, Erwan; McCoy, Timothy J.; Padovan, Sebastiano; Peale, Stanton J.; Perry, Mark E.; Smith, David E.; Zuber, Maria T. (June 2013). "The curious case of Mercury's internal structure: MERCURY'S INTERNAL STRUCTURE". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 118 (6): 1204–1220. doi:10.1002/jgre.20091.
  2. ^ Genova, Antonio; Goossens, Sander; Mazarico, Erwan; Lemoine, Frank G.; Neumann, Gregory A.; Kuang, Weijia; Sabaka, Terence J.; Hauck, Steven A.; Smith, David E.; Solomon, Sean C.; Zuber, Maria T. (16 April 2019). "Geodetic Evidence That Mercury Has A Solid Inner Core". Geophysical Research Letters. 46 (7): 3625–3633. doi:10.1029/2018GL081135.
  3. ^ Konopliv, A.S.; Park, R.S.; Ermakov, A.I. (January 2020). "The Mercury gravity field, orientation, love number, and ephemeris from the MESSENGER radiometric tracking data". Icarus. 335: 113386. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2019.07.020.

Greek transliteration of Hermes is misspelled

Minor point but the Greek spelling of Hermes is Ἑρμῆς. Note the accent marks on the Ε and the η. The spelling is correct in the article for Hermes (god) so you can copy/paste from there to fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schaffman (talk • contribs) 12:25, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

 Done – Dhtwiki (talk) 19:15, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Mercury: messenger of the gods, mediator between gods and mortals, and god of commerce

MODERATOR: This sentence is from the current introduction: "It is named after the Roman god Mercurius (Mercury), god of commerce, messenger of the gods, and mediator between gods and mortals, corresponding to the Greek god Hermes (Ἑρμῆς)." It would be best rearranged as: "It is named after the Roman god Mercurius (Mercury), messenger of the gods, mediator between gods and mortals, and god of commerce, corresponding to the Greek god Hermes (Ἑρμῆς)." This better reflects the purpose and priorities of the Roman/Greek god Mercury/Hermes. 2601:589:4801:5660:DDF:16C4:47AB:9489 (talk) 13:10, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Is it even necessary to say all that? Most sites just say the Roman messenger god, or make mention of his winged speed. Why not say, "It is named after the Roman messenger god Mercurius (Mercury), corresponding to the Greek god Hermes (Ἑρμῆς).". The other descriptors aren't particularly related to the article topic. Praemonitus (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Coldest planet

Coldest planet Aditya Kumar+11 (talk) 05:54, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 June 2021

this mercury should be MERCURY Aditya Kumar+11 (talk) 05:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Uthi d correct Aditya Kumar+11 (talk) 05:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Y Aditya Kumar+11 (talk) 05:53, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Lead image

Hey everyone, someone put up a true colour infobox image and was reverted because there was no discussion... well here is the discussion.

I favour a true colour image, since thats how people would see Mercury.  @Creativecomparisons1750:@FlightTime Phone: Nsae Comp (talk) 21:45, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Nsae Comp (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Changing it to true/visible colour image (current has infrared spectrum, see description). Nsae Comp (talk) 03:51, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Adding "hermean" as adjective

Hermean is also commonly used as an adjective to refer to Mercury, and should thus be added to the current list. Examples for the use of Hermean are: [1][2]

Etymologically, it originates from the Greek equivalent to the Roman Mercurius: Hermes.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:40, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Warell, J (2004). "Properties of the Hermean regolith: IV. Photometric parameters of Mercury and the Moon contrasted with Hapke modelling". Icarus. 167 (2): 271–286. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2003.10.010. ISSN 0019-1035.
  2. ^ Hiesinger, H.; Helbert, J.; Alemanno, G.; Bauch, K. E.; D’Amore, M.; Maturilli, A.; Morlok, A.; Reitze, M. P.; Stangarone, C.; Stojic, A. N.; Varatharajan, I.; Weber, I. (2020). "Studying the Composition and Mineralogy of the Hermean Surface with the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS) for the BepiColombo Mission: An Update". Space Science Reviews. 216 (6). doi:10.1007/s11214-020-00732-4. ISSN 0038-6308.

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2021

I suggest editing the intro where tidal locking is discussed, stating "Mercury is not tidally locked, though it was previously thought to be. The planet orbits the sun at a 3:2 ratio due to orbital resonance."Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). https://scopethegalaxy.com/is-mercury-tidally-locked/ Clairealexandra (talk) 17:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose: The supplied source for this opinion doesn't appear to be particularly reliable.[3] Praemonitus (talk) 17:32, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Percentage of water in planets

What is the percentage of water in Mercury. What is the percentage of water in Venus. What is the percentage of water in Earth. What is the percentage of water in Mars. What is the percentage of water in Jupiter. What is the percentage of water in Saturn. What is the percentage of water in Uranus. What is the percentage of water in Neptune. 2409:4051:4E92:6433:0:0:FC8:C214 (talk) 10:32, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Even on Earth, water is just going to be a trace amount: 0.12% of the total volume. Praemonitus (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Habitability

The section, as it stands right now, is just a stub of a section and shouldn't be included in a featured article, not in its current form at least. Just 2 paragraps of a single line each. However, the NASA article does not say much more than what I already added (it's a summary of key details about Mercury). The NIH reference is only a single sentence within an article about Mercury's topography. I can't access the NYT article because i reached my limit of free articles, can someone check if it has content useful to expand this section?

The issue of Mercury's habitability (or lack thereof) may still be noteworthy enough to be mentioned, but if there is no information to it to create a full section, it should be moved elsewhere in the article. Cambalachero (talk) 03:43, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It's appropriate to at least mention it. I suggest a merger with the "Surface conditions and exosphere" section. Praemonitus (talk) 14:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 October 2022

When speaking about the large diurnal temperature variations on Mercury, change from 'X' to 'Y': X is "ranging from 100 K (-173 C; -280 F) at night to 700 K (427 C; 800 F) during the day across the equatorial regions" TO 'Y': Y is "ranging from 700 K (427 C; 800 F) during the day across the equatorial regions, to 100 K (-173 C; -280 F) at night." The reason for this request is that in scientific astronomy, the planet Mercury is known to be extremely hot 'overall,' as well as the closest planet to the sun. Despite newer knowledge; that the dark "night" side is frigid due to the lack of sunlight combined with extremely little atmosphere, the "predominant" (and primary) temperature feature profile of Mercury has always been its Vulcan heat, and its closeness to the sun: therefore, the sunlit day side temperature should be noted "first" as a proper, respectful acknowledgement of priority, with the cold nights being of secondary priority. Otherwise, there is nothing technically wrong here, but a properly ordered discussion of scientific priorities must be considered. Thankyou.174.4.42.149 (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2022 (UTC) 174.4.42.149 (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: To me your requested change is not necessarily supported by the sources. The problem is use of the term "across the equatorial regions". The proposed version changes the referent of that term. Without reference to the sources I cannot make the change. Goldsztajn (talk) 12:49, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Link to synodic period

First para ends with mention of synodic period, which hyperlinks to a pop-up for Orbital Period, which is confusing (especially in context of the paragraph which gives different lengths of time for the two periods). The Orbital Period article deals with synodic period in para 3. I don't have enough technical knowledge: is it possible to have the link cause the pop-up text to start display at para 3? Lorenzoil (talk) 04:46, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, that would not be possible due to technical limitations. In fact, even when a certain section is linked to, only the first para of linked article pops up instead of the linked section. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 06:17, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Is the section on spin-orbit resonance consistent?

The section on spin-orbit resonance first says that the 3:2 resonance is stable only because of the eccentricity of the orbit but then goes on to say that the orbit varies between being eccentric and being nearly circular. It doesn't address the obvious question of what happens to the 3:2 resonance while the orbit is circular. I could imagine that the tidal effects on the period of revolution have a longer time scale than the fluctuations in the eccentricity, so that the orbit is already back to being sufficiently eccentric before the resonance is lost, but this should perhaps be addressed. Joriki (talk) 08:25, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

If the orbit of Mercury were to become permanently circularized, then over geologic time scales the resonance can chaotically destabilize and converge on a 1:1 lock. With the current eccentricity, the planet is more likely to converge on a 3:2 lock.
"Correia & Laskar (2004) pointed out that Mercury’s eccentricity has varied chaotically during its long dynamical evolution in the Solar system. The current state of Mercury, entrapped in the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, is the result of a long history of tidal and orbital interactions, probably marked by multiple passages of spin-orbit resonances. In particular, if the initial spin rate of Mercury was much greater than it is today, the planet has successfully traversed a number of higher resonances."[4]
Praemonitus (talk) 17:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
One thing I do know for sure is that Mercury is not tidally locked as this article states. I would figure out how to edit myself but I have far too many IT projects on my hands and I just don't have the time to scratch my head and remember how to write HTML code. Maybe when I get my ML workstations up and running, I'll let ML fix it on my behalf, lol.
The rotation period is synchronous with the orbital period in a 3:2 ratio. This is either an incredible stroke of luck or some as yet not understood fact of astrophysics. The eccentricity is clearly (to me) the result of a mass imbalance in the crust and core of the planet. I like to imagine it was hit by a massive comet which partially liquified the crust and caused massive geological imbalance and that at one point, Mercury's orbit was perfectly circular. 2600:8800:71AC:7B00:F911:2F72:8047:A9 (talk) 07:44, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Mercury is also close enough to the sun that the Sun's massive gravity blurs the effects of rotational dynamics. This isn't some lab project in an undergrad class. This is a whole planet and its orbit is ultimately governed by the Sun. I don't think a lot of people have a really good appreciation for just how resilient an orbit can be to change. Mercury can wobble a lot before the orbital period changes. Even the rotational period can withstand a lot of shenanigans before it changes because the rotational inertia variance caused by imbalanced mass has to be a certain percentage of the overall rotational inertia before it can even hope to change the period. 2600:8800:71AC:7B00:F911:2F72:8047:A9 (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
This is why your vibrator doesn't just come apart when you switch it on. The force keeping the eccentric cam on the output shaft of the motor is far greater than any force the eccentric cam can produce. 2600:8800:71AC:7B00:F911:2F72:8047:A9 (talk) 07:57, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
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