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[-] DharmaCurious@startrek.website 11 points 2 years ago
[-] brianorca@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Mercury orbits the sun every 88 earth days. It spins on its axis every 59 earth days, relative to an outside observer (sidereal day.) That makes the solar day (from sunrise to sunrise) 179 earth days long.

[-] Kase@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

So in a certain sense, a 'day' on Mercury is 2.034090909090 'years' long? (Solar day divided by orbiting the sun, lol)

[-] brianorca@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

No. I rounded off the numbers. A Mercury day is exactly 2 Mercury years. Which is why it's "in resonance". That means that gravity will speed up or slow down the rotation to keep the ratio stable over time.

[-] Kase@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Oh that's really neat!

Guys please upvote we all need an eli5

this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
656 points (98.4% liked)

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