something beautiful

Did you know….

… that Mercury is NOT the hottest planet? You’d think it is, because it is the closest to the sun, but no. It actually gets down to -300˚F at night. That’s because Mercury has almost no atmosphere to trap the heat on the side that is facing away from the sun. Add to that the fact that each day on Mercury is the equivalent of 59 earth days, and I think Mercury is making Alaska look like a sunny paradise of mild temperatures. (I only mention this because living in Alaska has been on my mind lately – I have no idea why.)  Daytime temps on the now-smallest* planet reach a scorching 750˚F, making Arizona summers also appear mild in comparison. Not that you’d want to live on Mercury anyway – meteors killed all the dinosaurs there. (OK, I made that last part up – there is no evidence that dinosaurs ever lived on Mercury.) Mercury really does get hit by a lot of meteors, though.

* Since the IAU declassified Pluto as a planet on August 24, 2006, Mercury is now the smallest planet, but we refuse to mention it without an asterisk. We are a little sore about Pluto’s demotion around here….