On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 08:48:10 -0700, Roger Bailey wrote
> More recent data, by radar in 1965, showed the rotational period was 
> 58.6 days, 2/3 the orbital period or Mercury year of 88 days. Noon 
> on a sundial on Mercury will show midnight one Mercury year later 
> and noon again only after two Mercury years. A Mercury day is two 
> Mercury years long! For details and sketches, see 
> http://www.mira.org/fts0/planets/092/text/txt001x.htm or whatever 
> else googling "Mercury rotation" brings up for you.
> 
> Good question. Thanks Anselmo.

Roger is right in this of the half-day mercurial year. But, in
my opinion, there is something else even more weird: due to the
orbital eccentricity the mercurial analemma is so wide that 
*maybe* at certain latitudes and in certain season of the 'year'
the sun could set, then rise *from the same point*, and then finally
set... Am I right?

Anselmo Perez Serrada


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