Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Watchers of the skies
- 2 Our Sun
- 3 Aspects of our Solar System
- 4 The rocky planets
- 5 The hunt for Planet X
- 6 Voyages to the outer planets
- 7 Harbingers of doom
- 8 Impact!
- 9 Four hundred years of the telescope
- 10 The family of stars
- 11 Aging stars
- 12 The search for other worlds
- 13 Are we alone? The search for life beyond the Earth
- 14 Our island Universe
- 15 Wonders of the southern sky
- 16 Proving Einstein right
- 17 Black holes: no need to be afraid
- 18 It’s about time
- 19 Hubble’s heritage: the astronomer and the telescope that honours his name
- 20 The violent Universe
- 21 The invisible Universe: dark matter and dark energy
- 22 The afterglow of creation
- 23 To infinity and beyond: a view of the cosmos
- Index
- Plate section
- References
4 - The rocky planets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Watchers of the skies
- 2 Our Sun
- 3 Aspects of our Solar System
- 4 The rocky planets
- 5 The hunt for Planet X
- 6 Voyages to the outer planets
- 7 Harbingers of doom
- 8 Impact!
- 9 Four hundred years of the telescope
- 10 The family of stars
- 11 Aging stars
- 12 The search for other worlds
- 13 Are we alone? The search for life beyond the Earth
- 14 Our island Universe
- 15 Wonders of the southern sky
- 16 Proving Einstein right
- 17 Black holes: no need to be afraid
- 18 It’s about time
- 19 Hubble’s heritage: the astronomer and the telescope that honours his name
- 20 The violent Universe
- 21 The invisible Universe: dark matter and dark energy
- 22 The afterglow of creation
- 23 To infinity and beyond: a view of the cosmos
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Our knowledge of the Solar System has increased dramatically in the last 50 years by the use of spacecraft that have flown by, orbited and even landed on the planets, giving us high resolution images and detailed planetary data. This chapter will cover our Earth and its Moon and the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars, with the following two chapters covering the outer planets, highlighting aspects related to their properties, discovery and satellites. The material included is that which I have found of most interest and I can only hope that what I have found interesting, you will too.
Mercury
Mercury has only ever been visited by two spacecraft, Mariner 10, which made three flybys in the mid 1970s and, early in 2008, by the MESSENGER spacecraft, one of whose images is shown in Figure 4.1. Mercury looks very like the highland regions of the Moon.
In 1991, Mercury was observed by radar using the 70-metre Goldstone antenna with a half-million-watt transmitter. The radar reflections were received by the Very Large Array in NewMexico to provide high resolution radar images. To great surprise, a very strong reflectionwas received fromMercury’s north polar region, which closely resembled the strong radar echoes seen fromthe ice-rich polar caps of Mars. At very low temperatures water ice is a very effective radar reflector.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Journey through the UniverseGresham Lectures on Astronomy, pp. 38 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014