Briefly compare and contrast the characteristics of the Moon and Mercury
What will be an ideal response?
The Moon and Mercury are similar in a number of ways. They are both small worlds; the moon is a fourth of Earth's diameter, and Mercury is slightly more than a third of Earth's diameter. They both have negligible atmospheres, their rotation has been altered by tides, their surfaces are heavily cratered, their lowlands are flooded in places by ancient lava flows, and both now have ancient, inactive surfaces.
On the other hand, the Moon and Mercury are different in a number of ways. The moon is a satellite and orbits the Earth; whereas, Mercury is the innermost planet and orbits the Sun. The Moon is tidally coupled to Earth where it rotates once per orbit. Mercury is tidally coupled to the Sun but rotates 1.5 times per orbit.
You might also like to view...
Plane Mirrors: Which one of the following sets of characteristics describes the image formed by a plane mirror?
A. real and inverted B. real and upright C. virtual and upright D. virtual and inverted E. virtual and larger than the object
Sunspots are hotter than the photosphere
a. True b. False Indicate whether the statement is true or false
The energy gap between the valence and conduction bands in a certain semiconductor is 1.25 eV
What is the threshold wavelength for optical absorption in this substance? (c = 3.00 × 108 m/s, 1 eV = 1.60 × 10-19 J, h = 6.626 × 10-34 J ? s) A) 959 nm B) 873 nm C) 994 nm D) 599 nm E) 639 nm
Why do Uranus and Neptune have blue methane clouds but Jupiter and Saturn do not?
A) Methane does not condense into ice in the warmer atmospheric temperatures of Jupiter and Saturn. B) Methane did not exist in the solar nebula at the radii of Jupiter and Saturn when the planets formed. C) The greater gravitational force of Jupiter and Saturn prevents the methane from rising to the upper edges of the atmosphere. D) Methane reacts with the abundant ammonia clouds in Jupiter and Saturn. E) The relatively slow rotation of Uranus and Neptune allows methane to migrate to higher levels in the atmosphere and condense into clouds.