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Episode 19 --- The Trouble With Mercury:  Our Solar System's Bizarre Innermost Planet

Episode 19 --- The Trouble With Mercury: Our Solar System's Bizarre Innermost Planet

FromThe Cosmic Controversy Podcast


Episode 19 --- The Trouble With Mercury: Our Solar System's Bizarre Innermost Planet

FromThe Cosmic Controversy Podcast

ratings:
Length:
66 minutes
Released:
Oct 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Guest Catherine Johnson, a planetary geophysicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discusses this bizarre little world; the innermost planet in our solar system.  A planet that’s so close to our Sun that its surface temperatures can hit 800 F.  But surprisingly, its poles harbor enough water ice to completely bury a major metropolis.  Some have even argued that Mercury may have once been habitable.  Where it formed still remains a mystery, but it does have a tiny magnetic field, a very oversized iron core, and one of the largest impact basins in the solar system.  A European mission is currently en route to orbit the planet in 2025. 
Released:
Oct 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (66)

Cosmic Controversy covers past and present issues in aerospace and astronomy with your host --- science journalist, Forbes contributor and ”Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System” author Bruce Dorminey.