why mercury surface varies so much from day to night?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pepe
  • Start date Start date
Do you mean temperature wise?

If so, this could be due to its thin atmosphere and weak greenhouse effect, as it has a pimarily helium-sodium-oxygen atmosphere.

If there is a weaker greenhouse effect then the heat can 'escape' into space more quickly, ie the planet cools more.

Also, if the heat capacity of the planet is low, then its temperature will fall more quickly. It doesn't have massive oceans to store heat in, and land tends to have a lower heat capacity. So it loses a certain amount of energy, which leads to a large change in temperature than if it had oceans.

If there is little or no atmosphere, then there isn't enough wind that can carry heat from the daytime side to the nighttime side.
 
It rotates very slowly and has little or no atmosphere and is close to the sun, so it roasts on the side toward the sun and loses heat rapidly to the chill of space on the dark side.
 
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