Bernie Badger: Mercury puts on a show - Florida Today
Mercury gets around — fast — so it won’t be around for very much longer. Right now, Mercury is close to its orbital tether, as viewed from Earth. 5, Mercury will reach greatest elongation , putting the largest angle between Mercury and the sun, as viewed from here. Mercury is 27 degrees away from the sun. Outer planets can appear 180 degrees away from the sun at opposition, but the inner planets can only go so far before the curve of their orbit brings them back towards the sun. Making it more difficult, Mercury appears 14 degrees above the horizon at sunset. This is because Mercury does not appear directly above the sun at our latitude. Mercury can go around the sun more than four times in an Earth year because Mercury’s orbital period (87. 9691 days or 0. 240846 year) is less than a quarter of Earth’s period (365. 25636 solar days). Yet we only see Mercury in the evening three times a year. The end effect is that one complete orbit of Mercury is cancelled out by one orbit of the Earth. Source: www.floridatoday.com
