Talk:Mercury (planet)/Archive 1

message: I disagree with the page move to just Mercury instead of Mercury (planet).  There was no discussion here on the talk page, and (more importantly) Mercury is unique among planets in that the word "mercury" has another meaning that is arguably just as common: that of the chemical element.  (Well, not really unique I guess: "earth" can mean dirt, and "Pluto" might be a cartoon dog.)  --Doradus 01:16, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
:I agree completely - the move should not have been done at all.  I'll take a look and reverse the move if need be. -- Chuq 01:53, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The pages have been moved back.  I just noticed the user who made the change (User:Kitch) has done the same to Pluto, Saturn and Neptune..  I may leave these for someone else to look at!  -- Chuq 09:42, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: I've just re-written quite a lot of the article for style and accuracy.  I've removed two sections, on the potential for space colonisation and data about elongations; the first, because it seems to be pure speculation, and the second because it is an enormous block of table which seems out of place in an encyclopaedia article.  Others might disagree with my removal; for convenience I've copied them both here:
===Potential for human colonization===
A crater at the North or South pole of Mercury might prove to be one of the best locations for an off-Earth colony, as the temperature would remain almost constant (at around minus 200 degrees Celsius). This is because Mercury has negligible axial tilt and essentially no atmosphere to carry heat from its sunlit portion. It would thus always be dark at the bottom of a crater at the planet's pole, even a shallow one. Human activities could warm the colony to a comfortable temperature, and the low ambient temperature would make waste heat disposal easier than most locations off Earth.
A base elsewhere would have to be able to deal with many weeks of continuous intense solar heating followed by many weeks without any external heating at all. This would not necessarily be as difficult as it may first seem. Facilities could be buried under several meters of loose-packed regolith, which in a vacuum would serve as effective thermal insulation as well as a radiation shield. Similar approaches have been proposed for bases on Earth's Moon, which has two-week-long days followed by two-week-long nights. Due to the lack of atmosphere to conduct heat, a thermal radiator hidden in the shadow of a sun screen would be able to reject heat into space even at the height of the Mercurian day. Alternatively, the base could use a heat sink during the day to store up heat for disposal during the night. Protecting mobile vehicles or robots against solar heating might prove much more difficult, however, which may limit the amount of surface activity that could be performed during the day.
===Appearance===
Greatest Eastern Elongation   	Stationary, retrograde 	Lower Conjunction      	Stationary, prograde   	Greatest Western Elongation  	Upper Conjunction
21 November 2004 (UTC) 22.2°  	30 November 2004 (UTC) 	10 December 2004 (UTC) 	20 December 2004 (UTC) 	29 December 2004 (UTC) 22.5° 	14 February 2005 (UTC)
12 March 2005 (UTC) 18.3°     	19 March 2005 (UTC)    	29 March 2005 (UTC)    	11 April 2005 (UTC)    	26 April 2005 (UTC) 27.2°    	3 June 2005 (UTC)
9 July 2005 (UTC) 26.2°       	22 July 2005 (UTC)     	5 August 2005 (UTC)    	15 August 2005 (UTC)   	23 August 2005 (UTC) 18.4°   	18 September 2005 (UTC)
3 November 2005 (UTC) 23.5°   	14 November 2005 (UTC) 	24 November 2005 (UTC) 	4 December 2005 (UTC)  	12 December 2005 (UTC) 21.1° 	26 January 2006 (UTC)
24 February 2006 (UTC) 18.1°  	2 March 2006 (UTC)     	12 March 2006 (UTC)    	24 March 2006 (UTC)    	8 April 2006 (UTC) 27.8°     	18 May 2006 (UTC)
20 June 2006 (UTC) 24.9°      	4 July 2006 (UTC)      	18 July 2006 (UTC)     	28 July 2006 (UTC)     	7 August 2006 (UTC) 19.2°    	18 May 2006 (UTC)
17 October 2006 (UTC) 24.8°   	28 October 2006 (UTC)  	11 November 2006 (UTC) 	17 November 2006 (UTC) 	25 November 2006 (UTC) 19.9° 	7 January 2007 (UTC)
7 February 2007 (UTC) 18.2°   	13 February 2007 (UTC) 	23 February 2007 (UTC) 	7 March 2007 (UTC)     	22 March 2007 (UTC) 27.7°    	3 May 2007 (UTC)
2 June 2007 (UTC) 23.4°       	15 June 2007 (UTC)     	28 June 2007 (UTC)     	10 July 2007 (UTC)     	20 July 2007 (UTC)  20.3°    	15 August 2007 (UTC)
29 September 2007 (UTC) 26°   	12 October 2007 (UTC)  	23 October 2007 (UTC)  	1 November 2007 (UTC)  	8 November 2007 (UTC) 19°    	17 December 2007 (UTC)
22 January 2008 (UTC) 18.6°   	28 January 2008 (UTC)  	6 February 2008 (UTC)  	18 February 2008 (UTC) 	3 March 2008 (UTC) 27.1°     	16 April 2008 (UTC)
14 May 2008 (UTC) 21.8°       	26 May 2008 (UTC)      	7 June 2008 (UTC)      	19 June 2008 (UTC)     	1 July 2008 (UTC) 21.8°      	29 July 2008 (UTC)
11 September 2008 (UTC)  26.9°	24 September 2008 (UTC)	6 October 2008 (UTC)   	15 October 2008 (UTC)  	22 October 2008 (UTC) 18.3°  	25 November 2008 (UTC)
4 January 2009 (UTC) 19.3°    	11 January 2009 (UTC)  	20 January 2009 (UTC)  	1 February 2009 (UTC)  	13 February 2009 (UTC) 26.1° 	31 March 2009 (UTC)
26 April 2009 (UTC) 20.4°     	7 May 2009 (UTC)       	18 May 2009 (UTC)      	30 May 2009 (UTC)      	13 June 2009 (UTC) 23.5°     	14 July 2009 (UTC)
24 August 2009 (UTC) 27.4°    	6 September 2009 (UTC) 	20 September 2009 (UTC)	28 September 2009 (UTC)	6 October 2009 (UTC) 17.9°   	5 November 2009 (UTC)
18 December 2009 (UTC) 20.3°  	26 December 2009 (UTC) 	4 January 2010 (UTC)   	15 January 2010 (UTC)  	27 January 2010 (UTC) 24.8°  	14 March 2010 (UTC)
8 April 2010 (UTC) 19.3°      	18 April 2010 (UTC)    	28 April 2010 (UTC)    	11 May 2010 (UTC)      	26 May 2010 (UTC) 25.1°      	28 June 2010 (UTC)
7 August 2010 (UTC) 24.2°     	20 August 2010 (UTC)   	3 September 2010 (UTC) 	12 September 2010 (UTC)	19 September 2010 (UTC) 18.2°	17 October 2010 (UTC)
1 December 2010 (UTC) 21.2°   	10 December 2010 (UTC) 	20 December 2010 (UTC) 	30 December 2010 (UTC) 	9 January 2011 (UTC) 23.3°   	25 February 2011 (UTC)
23 March 2011 (UTC) 18.6°     	30 March 2011 (UTC)    	9 April 2011 (UTC)     	22 April 2011 (UTC)    	7 May 2011 (UTC) 26.6°       	12 June 2011 (UTC)
20 July 2011 (UTC) 26.8°      	2 August 2011 (UTC)    	17 August 2011 (UTC)   	26 August 2011 (UTC)   	3 September 2011 (UTC) 18.1° 	28 September 2011 (UTC)
14 November 2011 (UTC) 22.7°  	24 November 2011 (UTC) 	4 December 2011 (UTC)  	14 December 2011 (UTC) 	23 December 2011 (UTC) 21.8° 	7 February 2012 (UTC)
5 March 2012 (UTC) 18.2°      	11 March 2012 (UTC)    	21 March 2012 (UTC)    	3 April 2012 (UTC)     	18 April 2012 (UTC) 27.5°    	27 May 2012 (UTC)
1 July 2012 (UTC) 25.7°       	14 July 2012 (UTC)     	28 July 2012 (UTC)     	7 August 2012 (UTC)    	16 August 2012 (UTC) 18.7°   	10 September 2012 (UTC)
26 October 2012 (UTC) 24.1°   	7 November 2012 (UTC)  	17 November 2012 (UTC) 	26 November 2012 (UTC) 	4 December 2012 (UTC) 20.6°  	18 January 2013 (UTC)
16 February 2013 (UTC) 18.1°  	22 February 2013 (UTC) 	4 March 2013 (UTC)     	16 March 2013 (UTC)    	31 March 2013 (UTC) 27.8°    	11 May 2013 (UTC)
12 June 2013 (UTC) 24.3°      	25 June 2013 (UTC)     	9 July 2013 (UTC)      	20 July 2013 (UTC)     	30 July 2013 (UTC) 19.6°     	24 August 2013 (UTC)
9 October 2013 (UTC) 25.3°    	21 October 2013 (UTC)  	1 November 2013 (UTC)  	10 November 2013 (UTC) 	18 November 2013 (UTC) 19.5° 	29 December 2013 (UTC)
31 January 2014 (UTC) 18.4°   	6 February 2014 (UTC)  	15 February 2014 (UTC) 	27 February 2014 (UTC) 	14 March 2014 (UTC) 27.6°    	26 April 2014 (UTC)
25 May 2014 (UTC) 22.7°       	7 June 2014 (UTC)      	19 June 2014 (UTC)     	1 July 2014 (UTC)      	12 July 2014 (UTC) 20.9°     	8 August 2014 (UTC)
21 September 2014 (UTC) 26.4° 	4 October 2014 (UTC)   	16 October 2014 (UTC)  	25 October 2014 (UTC)  	1 November 2014 (UTC) 18.7°  	8 December 2014 (UTC)
14 January 2015 (UTC) 18.9°   	21 January 2015 (UTC)  	30 January 2015 (UTC)  	11 February 2015 (UTC) 	24 February 2015 (UTC) 26.8° 	10 April 2015 (UTC)
7 May 2015 (UTC) 21.2°        	19 May 2015 (UTC)      	30 May 2015 (UTC)      	11 June 2015 (UTC)     	24 June 2015 (UTC) 22.5°     	23 July 2015 (UTC)
4 September 2015 (UTC) 27.1°  	17 September 2015 (UTC)	30 September 2015 (UTC)	8 October 2015 (UTC)   	16 October 2015 (UTC) 18.1°  	17 November 2015 (UTC)
29 December 2015 (UTC) 19.7°  	5 January 2016 (UTC)   	14 January 2016 (UTC)  	25 January 2016 (UTC)  	7 February 2016 (UTC) 25.6°  	23 March 2016 (UTC)
18 April 2016 (UTC) 19.9°     	29 April 2016 (UTC)    	9 May 2016 (UTC)       	21 May 2016 (UTC)      	5 June 2016 (UTC) 24.2°      	7 July 2016 (UTC)
16 August 2016 (UTC) 27.4°    	30 August 2016 (UTC)   	12 September 2016 (UTC)	21 September 2016 (UTC)	28 September 2016 (UTC) 17.9°	27 October 2016 (UTC)
11 December 2016 (UTC) 20.8°  	19 December 2016 (UTC) 	28 December 2016 (UTC) 	8 January 2017 (UTC)   	19 January 2017 (UTC) 24.1°  	7 March 2017 (UTC)
1 April 2017 (UTC) 19°        	10 April 2017 (UTC)    	20 April 2017 (UTC)    	2 May 2017 (UTC)       	17 May 2017 (UTC) 25.8°      	21 June 2017 (UTC)
30 July 2017 (UTC) 27.2°      	12 August 2017 (UTC)   	26 August 2017 (UTC)   	4 September 2017 (UTC) 	12 September 2017 (UTC) 17.9°	8 October 2017 (UTC)
24 November 2017 (UTC) 22°    	3 December 2017 (UTC)  	13 December 2017 (UTC) 	23 December 2017 (UTC) 	1 January 2018 (UTC) 22.7°   	17 February 2018 (UTC)
15 March 2018 (UTC) 18.4°     	22 March 2018 (UTC)    	1 April 2018 (UTC)     	14 April 2018 (UTC)    	29 April 2018 (UTC) 27°      	6 June 2018 (UTC)
12 July 2018 (UTC) 26.4°      	25 July 2018 (UTC)     	9 August 2018 (UTC)    	18 August 2018 (UTC)   	26 August 2018 (UTC) 18.3°   	21 September 2018 (UTC)
6 November 2018 (UTC) 23.3°   	17 November 2018 (UTC) 	27 November 2018 (UTC) 	6 December 2018 (UTC)  	15 December 2018 (UTC) 21.3° 	30 January 2019 (UTC)
27 February 2019 (UTC) 18.1°  	5 March 2019 (UTC)     	15 March 2019 (UTC)    	27 March 2019 (UTC)    	11 April 2019 (UTC) 27.7°    	21 May 2019 (UTC)
23 June 2019 (UTC) 25.1°      	7 July 2019 (UTC)      	21 July 2019 (UTC)     	31 July 2019 (UTC)     	9 August 2019 (UTC) 19.1°    	4 September 2019 (UTC)
20 October 2019 (UTC) 24.6°   	31 October 2019 (UTC)  	11 November 2019 (UTC) 	20 November 2019 (UTC) 	28 November 2019 (UTC) 20.1° 	10 January 2020 (UTC)
10 February 2020 (UTC) 18.2°  	16 February 2020 (UTC) 	26 February 2020 (UTC) 	9 March 2020 (UTC)     	24 March 2020 (UTC) 27.8°    	4 May 2020 (UTC)
4 June 2020 (UTC) 23.6°       	17 June 2020 (UTC)     	1 July 2020 (UTC)      	12 July 2020 (UTC)     	22 July 2020 (UTC) 20.1°     	17 August 2020 (UTC)
1 October 2020 (UTC) 25.8°    	14 October 2020 (UTC)  	25 October 2020 (UTC)  	3 November 2020 (UTC)  	10 November 2020 (UTC) 19.1° 	20 December 2020 (UTC)
:Worldtraveller 23:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut sections 

message: Greatest Eastern Elongation   	Stationary, retrograde 	Lower Conjunction      	Stationary, prograde   	Greatest Western Elongation  	Upper Conjunction
21 November 2004 (UTC) 22.2°  	30 November 2004 (UTC) 	10 December 2004 (UTC) 	20 December 2004 (UTC) 	29 December 2004 (UTC) 22.5° 	14 February 2005 (UTC)
12 March 2005 (UTC) 18.3°     	19 March 2005 (UTC)    	29 March 2005 (UTC)    	11 April 2005 (UTC)    	26 April 2005 (UTC) 27.2°    	3 June 2005 (UTC)
9 July 2005 (UTC) 26.2°       	22 July 2005 (UTC)     	5 August 2005 (UTC)    	15 August 2005 (UTC)   	23 August 2005 (UTC) 18.4°   	18 September 2005 (UTC)
3 November 2005 (UTC) 23.5°   	14 November 2005 (UTC) 	24 November 2005 (UTC) 	4 December 2005 (UTC)  	12 December 2005 (UTC) 21.1° 	26 January 2006 (UTC)
24 February 2006 (UTC) 18.1°  	2 March 2006 (UTC)     	12 March 2006 (UTC)    	24 March 2006 (UTC)    	8 April 2006 (UTC) 27.8°     	18 May 2006 (UTC)
20 June 2006 (UTC) 24.9°      	4 July 2006 (UTC)      	18 July 2006 (UTC)     	28 July 2006 (UTC)     	7 August 2006 (UTC) 19.2°    	18 May 2006 (UTC)
17 October 2006 (UTC) 24.8°   	28 October 2006 (UTC)  	11 November 2006 (UTC) 	17 November 2006 (UTC) 	25 November 2006 (UTC) 19.9° 	7 January 2007 (UTC)
7 February 2007 (UTC) 18.2°   	13 February 2007 (UTC) 	23 February 2007 (UTC) 	7 March 2007 (UTC)     	22 March 2007 (UTC) 27.7°    	3 May 2007 (UTC)
2 June 2007 (UTC) 23.4°       	15 June 2007 (UTC)     	28 June 2007 (UTC)     	10 July 2007 (UTC)     	20 July 2007 (UTC)  20.3°    	15 August 2007 (UTC)
29 September 2007 (UTC) 26°   	12 October 2007 (UTC)  	23 October 2007 (UTC)  	1 November 2007 (UTC)  	8 November 2007 (UTC) 19°    	17 December 2007 (UTC)
22 January 2008 (UTC) 18.6°   	28 January 2008 (UTC)  	6 February 2008 (UTC)  	18 February 2008 (UTC) 	3 March 2008 (UTC) 27.1°     	16 April 2008 (UTC)
14 May 2008 (UTC) 21.8°       	26 May 2008 (UTC)      	7 June 2008 (UTC)      	19 June 2008 (UTC)     	1 July 2008 (UTC) 21.8°      	29 July 2008 (UTC)
11 September 2008 (UTC)  26.9°	24 September 2008 (UTC)	6 October 2008 (UTC)   	15 October 2008 (UTC)  	22 October 2008 (UTC) 18.3°  	25 November 2008 (UTC)
4 January 2009 (UTC) 19.3°    	11 January 2009 (UTC)  	20 January 2009 (UTC)  	1 February 2009 (UTC)  	13 February 2009 (UTC) 26.1° 	31 March 2009 (UTC)
26 April 2009 (UTC) 20.4°     	7 May 2009 (UTC)       	18 May 2009 (UTC)      	30 May 2009 (UTC)      	13 June 2009 (UTC) 23.5°     	14 July 2009 (UTC)
24 August 2009 (UTC) 27.4°    	6 September 2009 (UTC) 	20 September 2009 (UTC)	28 September 2009 (UTC)	6 October 2009 (UTC) 17.9°   	5 November 2009 (UTC)
18 December 2009 (UTC) 20.3°  	26 December 2009 (UTC) 	4 January 2010 (UTC)   	15 January 2010 (UTC)  	27 January 2010 (UTC) 24.8°  	14 March 2010 (UTC)
8 April 2010 (UTC) 19.3°      	18 April 2010 (UTC)    	28 April 2010 (UTC)    	11 May 2010 (UTC)      	26 May 2010 (UTC) 25.1°      	28 June 2010 (UTC)
7 August 2010 (UTC) 24.2°     	20 August 2010 (UTC)   	3 September 2010 (UTC) 	12 September 2010 (UTC)	19 September 2010 (UTC) 18.2°	17 October 2010 (UTC)
1 December 2010 (UTC) 21.2°   	10 December 2010 (UTC) 	20 December 2010 (UTC) 	30 December 2010 (UTC) 	9 January 2011 (UTC) 23.3°   	25 February 2011 (UTC)
23 March 2011 (UTC) 18.6°     	30 March 2011 (UTC)    	9 April 2011 (UTC)     	22 April 2011 (UTC)    	7 May 2011 (UTC) 26.6°       	12 June 2011 (UTC)
20 July 2011 (UTC) 26.8°      	2 August 2011 (UTC)    	17 August 2011 (UTC)   	26 August 2011 (UTC)   	3 September 2011 (UTC) 18.1° 	28 September 2011 (UTC)
14 November 2011 (UTC) 22.7°  	24 November 2011 (UTC) 	4 December 2011 (UTC)  	14 December 2011 (UTC) 	23 December 2011 (UTC) 21.8° 	7 February 2012 (UTC)
5 March 2012 (UTC) 18.2°      	11 March 2012 (UTC)    	21 March 2012 (UTC)    	3 April 2012 (UTC)     	18 April 2012 (UTC) 27.5°    	27 May 2012 (UTC)
1 July 2012 (UTC) 25.7°       	14 July 2012 (UTC)     	28 July 2012 (UTC)     	7 August 2012 (UTC)    	16 August 2012 (UTC) 18.7°   	10 September 2012 (UTC)
26 October 2012 (UTC) 24.1°   	7 November 2012 (UTC)  	17 November 2012 (UTC) 	26 November 2012 (UTC) 	4 December 2012 (UTC) 20.6°  	18 January 2013 (UTC)
16 February 2013 (UTC) 18.1°  	22 February 2013 (UTC) 	4 March 2013 (UTC)     	16 March 2013 (UTC)    	31 March 2013 (UTC) 27.8°    	11 May 2013 (UTC)
12 June 2013 (UTC) 24.3°      	25 June 2013 (UTC)     	9 July 2013 (UTC)      	20 July 2013 (UTC)     	30 July 2013 (UTC) 19.6°     	24 August 2013 (UTC)
9 October 2013 (UTC) 25.3°    	21 October 2013 (UTC)  	1 November 2013 (UTC)  	10 November 2013 (UTC) 	18 November 2013 (UTC) 19.5° 	29 December 2013 (UTC)
31 January 2014 (UTC) 18.4°   	6 February 2014 (UTC)  	15 February 2014 (UTC) 	27 February 2014 (UTC) 	14 March 2014 (UTC) 27.6°    	26 April 2014 (UTC)
25 May 2014 (UTC) 22.7°       	7 June 2014 (UTC)      	19 June 2014 (UTC)     	1 July 2014 (UTC)      	12 July 2014 (UTC) 20.9°     	8 August 2014 (UTC)
21 September 2014 (UTC) 26.4° 	4 October 2014 (UTC)   	16 October 2014 (UTC)  	25 October 2014 (UTC)  	1 November 2014 (UTC) 18.7°  	8 December 2014 (UTC)
14 January 2015 (UTC) 18.9°   	21 January 2015 (UTC)  	30 January 2015 (UTC)  	11 February 2015 (UTC) 	24 February 2015 (UTC) 26.8° 	10 April 2015 (UTC)
7 May 2015 (UTC) 21.2°        	19 May 2015 (UTC)      	30 May 2015 (UTC)      	11 June 2015 (UTC)     	24 June 2015 (UTC) 22.5°     	23 July 2015 (UTC)
4 September 2015 (UTC) 27.1°  	17 September 2015 (UTC)	30 September 2015 (UTC)	8 October 2015 (UTC)   	16 October 2015 (UTC) 18.1°  	17 November 2015 (UTC)
29 December 2015 (UTC) 19.7°  	5 January 2016 (UTC)   	14 January 2016 (UTC)  	25 January 2016 (UTC)  	7 February 2016 (UTC) 25.6°  	23 March 2016 (UTC)
18 April 2016 (UTC) 19.9°     	29 April 2016 (UTC)    	9 May 2016 (UTC)       	21 May 2016 (UTC)      	5 June 2016 (UTC) 24.2°      	7 July 2016 (UTC)
16 August 2016 (UTC) 27.4°    	30 August 2016 (UTC)   	12 September 2016 (UTC)	21 September 2016 (UTC)	28 September 2016 (UTC) 17.9°	27 October 2016 (UTC)
11 December 2016 (UTC) 20.8°  	19 December 2016 (UTC) 	28 December 2016 (UTC) 	8 January 2017 (UTC)   	19 January 2017 (UTC) 24.1°  	7 March 2017 (UTC)
1 April 2017 (UTC) 19°        	10 April 2017 (UTC)    	20 April 2017 (UTC)    	2 May 2017 (UTC)       	17 May 2017 (UTC) 25.8°      	21 June 2017 (UTC)
30 July 2017 (UTC) 27.2°      	12 August 2017 (UTC)   	26 August 2017 (UTC)   	4 September 2017 (UTC) 	12 September 2017 (UTC) 17.9°	8 October 2017 (UTC)
24 November 2017 (UTC) 22°    	3 December 2017 (UTC)  	13 December 2017 (UTC) 	23 December 2017 (UTC) 	1 January 2018 (UTC) 22.7°   	17 February 2018 (UTC)
15 March 2018 (UTC) 18.4°     	22 March 2018 (UTC)    	1 April 2018 (UTC)     	14 April 2018 (UTC)    	29 April 2018 (UTC) 27°      	6 June 2018 (UTC)
12 July 2018 (UTC) 26.4°      	25 July 2018 (UTC)     	9 August 2018 (UTC)    	18 August 2018 (UTC)   	26 August 2018 (UTC) 18.3°   	21 September 2018 (UTC)
6 November 2018 (UTC) 23.3°   	17 November 2018 (UTC) 	27 November 2018 (UTC) 	6 December 2018 (UTC)  	15 December 2018 (UTC) 21.3° 	30 January 2019 (UTC)
27 February 2019 (UTC) 18.1°  	5 March 2019 (UTC)     	15 March 2019 (UTC)    	27 March 2019 (UTC)    	11 April 2019 (UTC) 27.7°    	21 May 2019 (UTC)
23 June 2019 (UTC) 25.1°      	7 July 2019 (UTC)      	21 July 2019 (UTC)     	31 July 2019 (UTC)     	9 August 2019 (UTC) 19.1°    	4 September 2019 (UTC)
20 October 2019 (UTC) 24.6°   	31 October 2019 (UTC)  	11 November 2019 (UTC) 	20 November 2019 (UTC) 	28 November 2019 (UTC) 20.1° 	10 January 2020 (UTC)
10 February 2020 (UTC) 18.2°  	16 February 2020 (UTC) 	26 February 2020 (UTC) 	9 March 2020 (UTC)     	24 March 2020 (UTC) 27.8°    	4 May 2020 (UTC)
4 June 2020 (UTC) 23.6°       	17 June 2020 (UTC)     	1 July 2020 (UTC)      	12 July 2020 (UTC)     	22 July 2020 (UTC) 20.1°     	17 August 2020 (UTC)
1 October 2020 (UTC) 25.8°    	14 October 2020 (UTC)  	25 October 2020 (UTC)  	3 November 2020 (UTC)  	10 November 2020 (UTC) 19.1° 	20 December 2020 (UTC)
:Worldtraveller 23:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Appearance

message: Why does the table give: Declination 61.45°
I thought that declination of planets is variable. Cartes du Ciel says that mercury's declination is now +03°41'04.1? [unsigned]
:I'm also confused about that. I guess the north pole of mercury points to that position. 84.169.247.228 19:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's what it was. The infobox has been fixed to reflect this better now. Urhixidur 04:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  declination 

message: "Mercury (planet)" applies the phrases "Morning Star " and "Evening Star" to Mercury. The separate articles
"Morning Star" and the like refer to Venus.
81.132.55.206 15:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency 

message: "Tentative suggestions have been made that Mercury may be a Chthonian planet." Can anyone provide any citation for this? It is also mentioned on the chthonian planet page, no citation there either. Chaos syndrome 17:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't find any backing for this claim so I removed it when I changed the structure.  Worldtraveller 09:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chthonian planet? 

message: The section edit boxes all appear at Orbit.  Could someone fix that?  I don't know how to fix formatting things of that sort, as far as I know those are automatic and I don't have experience dealing with such things. --Keflavich 05:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if there's anything we can do about that unfortunately.  The edit links are placed automatically by MediaWiki and only removing the info box would get them back to the right place, I think.  Worldtraveller 09:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits 

message: The section on cultural understanding is one that needs work.  Can anyone add to it?  Once it's a decent overview I'm thinking this article is beginning to look like it might be a worthy FA candidate.  I'm just adding references and tidying up prose in the rest of the article at the moment.  Worldtraveller 10:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved this section to a better place and renamed it 'Early astronomers'. The Singing Badger 12:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I like that.  Bit of a gap between the greeks and the 17th century though - I'll see what I can find out and if anyone else can add anything that would be great.  Worldtraveller 12:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request 

message: I'm editing the article to make all spellings consistently follow American usage. This is because the oldest version of the article used American spellings (kilometer, not kilometre). Angr (talk • contribs) 09:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling consistency 

message: The NASA maps of the planet make the surface look brown. Yet I've seen artist's impressions that make the planet grey, like the Moon. Does anyone know which is correct? The Singing Badger 02:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What colour is Mercury? 

message: The maximum magnitude of Mercury seems to be -1.9. A standard
magnitude seems to be -0.42. The average magnitude seems to be 0.0.
The minimum is about 1.3 or a slightly higher number. The numbers in the article seem to be wrong.
According to Astronomy magazine, Mercury will have an apparent magnitude of -0.9 on June 9, which is half a magnitude brighter than the maximum of -0.42 listed here. That -1.9 seems reasonable, but the -.42 is clearly wrong--Syd Henderson 21:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This page gives the range as roughly -2.0 to 5.5.  I've changed the numbers in the article, and investigated the history - the numbers were added in July 2003 and haven't been questioned until now!  Thanks for picking up on this long-standing error!  Worldtraveller 23:26, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here are some others: My Peterson Guide Stars and Planets (2000 Edition) says -2.3 is the maximum magnitude of Mercury, but Kaufman's Universe (1985) and The Guiness Book of Astronomy Facts and Feats (2nd Edition, 1983) both agree on -1.9. The "About -2" is okay.)--Syd Henderson 03:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury's Magnitude 

message: Shouldn/t Mercury's distance from the Sun appear near the top of the article? I imagine this # is buried in some astro. shorthand in that table, but it should be more plain, no? Sfahey 03:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distance from the Sun 

message: The explanation given sounds like it is referring to phenomena predicted by special relativity, not general relativity. That is incorrect, as the SR contribution is only about 7"/century, and was already taken into account before Einstein published his explanation based on GR. I don't know an easy way to explain how the 
anomalous precession derives from GR, or I'd fix this myself. --Mmm 08:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: \frac{m(v)-m(v=0)}{m(v=0)} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\left(v/c\right)^2}} - 1 \approx \frac{1}{2} \left(v/c\right)^2
is even somewhat smaller than the advance of perihelion measured in radians.
It looks unrealistic to measure such small pertubations. At least there are many speculation about all kind of pertubations of the orbit in that order of magnitude, which are not completely understood. 84.169.211.110 08:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But this consideration seems to be wrong, since the mass is m = E/c2 = (Ekin + Epot)/c2. The total energy of Mercury is (almost) constant, so that there is (almost) no effect. --88.68.120.203 11:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The question is, wether Epot contributes to the mass of Mercury, the Sun or the Solar System. Epot is neglectable compared to the rest energy of the Sun, so that in this case the simulation might be correct. --84.59.142.93 09:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advance of perihelion 

message: The statement "its greatest angular separation from the Sun (greatest elongation) is only 28.3° (it can only be seen in twilight)." came as a big surprise to me. Can any one please explain why Mercury cannot be seen at dawn as well, half a Mercurian year (44 days) later? 
Thanks, --AVM 17:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Twilight happens before dawn as well as after sunset.  This seems to be the source of your confusion.  Twilight just means that the sun is below the horizon but the sky is still light. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.179.65.38 (talk) 23:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Visibility Times 

message: I find it amusing that Mercury is the featured article on the Main Page the very same day that Pluto is on the Main Page "In the news" for its "demotion" from planet. Agent 86 22:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a coincidence, I think the chances are just too large...--Planetary 22:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text: See Apophenia Raul654 23:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irony? Coincidence? Taunting? 

message: The article states that Mercury's gravity is too small for it to hold any substatial atmosphere. Yet Titan's atmosphere is thicker than earths, despite having much less gravity than either Earth or Mars. So how can this be the reason Mercury has such a small atmoshere? 142.68.186.29 23:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The sun blows away any gasses on mercury's surface. Raul654 23:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not 'the Sun', it's the Solar wind.  --AVM 03:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And where does it originate? Picky picky ;) Raul654 03:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Mercury does have an atmosphere, it's just so thin, it's not enough to affect the planet in any way. This atmosphere mostly results from the solar wind hitting the surface and interacting with the atoms of the rock. As for Titan's atmosphere, well, it's a bit of a mystery. That's why the Cassini spacecraft's observations of Titan arehighly important.--Planetary 05:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The solar wind is much weaker at Titan's distance from the sun... It also spends almost all of its time inside Saturn's Magnetosphere which deflects solar wind aswell, stopping particles from ionizing n "blowing away" -- Nbound 23:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: According to some books and also German Wikipedia, the main chemical element in Mercury atmosphere is oxygen. --Wizzard 21:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atmosphere? 

message: I found this added to the end of the first paragraph from 210.15.211.182:
"Mercury does not have any moons, but is a tiny bit bigger than our moon."
GravityIsForSuckers 03:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's nice, but next time just delete it and don't mention it here. Vandals want attention.--Planetary 07:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Acknowledged. GravityIsForSuckers 14:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Vandalism 

message: I know we're all excited about Pluto no longer being a planet, but honestly the "smallest planet in the solar system" in the first sentence is going to be misleading to a lot of people. I had added the clarification "smallest of the 8 planets in the solar system" but I see that's been removed. Footnotes are also well and good, but the average person isn't going to read them. I strongly suggest being a bit more explicit about where it stands, at least until Pluto is no longer considered a planet by the average man on the street - probably a few more years at least. Stevage 10:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed -- Nbound 10:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smallest planet 

message: Comparing the article to a page on NASA, im gettin different values... Are we using old figures here... or is NASA... 
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/mercuryfact.html
-- Nbound 01:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atmosphere composition 

message: The argument for the advance of Mercury's perihelion does not appear to view the orbit of Mercury from the perspective of the focus of its orbit, which is the centre of the sun. If this were applied and taken to its logical conclusion, by starting from the basis of the average velocity/mass and applying mass dilation in the hemisphere of the aphelion, a lower than average mass would result and thus a reduced velocity at the aphelion and an undershooting of its predicted position. And as the time Mercury spends in the hemisphere of the aphelion is far greater than that in the opposite, the result would be to more than cancel out the suggested perihelion advance, which in turn would have the overall effect of reversing the observed precession. I would be interested in an explanation. Romun 07:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precession 

message: Please discuss at Talk:Mercury --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 20:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: Within the section titled "Observation", several things appear to be wrong:
* There is no apparent retrograd motion which lasts "8 to 15 days on either side of inferior conjunction"
* The maximal apparent elongations are not synchronized with Earth's rotation so the paragraph explaining a difference between northern and southern hemisphere makes no sense
* The phase of maximal apparent magnitude should vary between gibbous and crescent (because it depends on where Mercury is on its elliptic orbit and again this is not synchronized with Earth's orbit)
Icek 04:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Observation section 

message: There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects#Planet_infobox_conventions_.28km_vs._AU_vs._miles.29 on standardizing the planet infoboxes, as well as the possibility of changing the planet diameter to radius. If you care about these things, let your opinion be heard there. Lunokhod 10:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  infobox 

message: Vandalism spotted, but I am not able to edit, since the vandalism is not visible in edit mode.
Salimi 19:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's not visible when you go to edit it, that usually means that someone has already corrected it.  Try reloading the page. siafu 19:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Mercury's heat may go up to 800 degree f, on the other side of the planet it
may lower to 200 f below zero. It would take 85 Earth days to get around the sun.
Mercury has no moons, it does have volcanos. Mercury has more than 500 volcanos —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.32.42.130 (talk) 23:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What just happened up there???-- Planetary (talk • contribs) 05:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury heat 

message: Hey everybody,
one http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/why_mercury/index.html one find an estimation for a core size with 65% of the whole planet size and NOT as written in the article 42%. 
My guess is 65% by mass = 42% by volume; both numbers being subject to assumtions which have credibility, but are unproven.   Neil
And what is meant by planet size, part of the volume or part of the total mass in Mercury's mass distribution? (Maybe this makes the different between Messanger-site and wikipedia?)
Can someone comment on it?
(Sorry for my poor English, I am just a German guy.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.206.107.106 (talk) 14:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core size 

message: With the values of aphelion distance and perihelion distance from this article, I calculate the semi-minor-axis to = 56 671 637,01 km (believe me - i used my (by me) developed equation : b = sqr ( ((aph + per) / 2)² + ((aph - per) / 2)²) , but i dont want to explain the equation - its hard to write for me in English - test and compare it with every other accepted equation (for this planet, and if you want, for any other planet and object) - you will see : I'm right). With the same equation you can calculate the semi-minor-axis for article of planets, which only give the semi-MAJOR-axis.
For the orbital circumference i have calculated with numerical integration the very exact value of : 359 976 796,63 km - test and compare it with the exact values of the semi-major-axis and semi-minor-axis, on this link : http://www.mathematik.ch/anwendungenmath/numint/  or any other exact equation for the circumference of an ellipse ...you will see, I'm right. 
I can't make the changes in this article, because I'm only signed up at the german wikipedia. But if nobody make this mathematically correct changes in this article maybe I sign up here, and make the changes for all planets, who gives the aphelion and perihelion distances, but only the semi-major-axis, and not the semi-minor-axis - and just a not-exactly orbital circumference, like in the Mercury-article. Lots of Greets from Austria, Pygmalion1 (24. February 2007 , 12:03 (CET))
:The orbit of Mercury is not exactly an ellipse (it precesses, mostly), so the orbital circumference is not that of an ellipse and is actually very hard to specify.  A difference in orbital circumference of .008% is not significant.  The orbital circumference is only given to two places for this reason. Michaelbusch 18:12, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If small differences are not important, why the exact values for aphelion distance, perihelion distance, etc. It could round it to the next 100 km's - not so important ;-) - only few 10^-4 % ... You know, what i mean ? I know : Mercury not closing the ellipse, but he has a "period" from which "he" start a knew "cyclus" and for this point, it can calculate a value for this "circumference". The value of 360 million kilometres is not "more right", when the track of mercury not an ellipse ;-) Or: for example, in this case i would write "approximately 360 Million kilometres" in the article, for orbital circumference. But the other exactly given values for the track, suggest's that the orbital circumference also exact - and that can't be in this case. Like i say : if it stand "appr. 360 Million" its ok - but not, if one value of track is given exactly, another value just "circa", and something like this - seems a little bit unprofessionell - maybe just for me. Greetings, Pygmalion1 (24. february 2007 (21:56 CET)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.1.134 (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The orbital elements given in the article are osculating elements: at a particular reference time specified in the J2000 coordinates, they define an ellipse tangent to Mercury's position and velocity.  That ellipse is defined to as accurately as we know the position of Mercury, which is at the sub-km level, and determines Mercury's trajectory given the positions, velocities, and masses of the other masses in the solar system, but Mercury is not on that ellipse.  The orbital circumference could refer to the circumference of that ellipse (which you calculated), the distance Mercury travels in heliocentric coordinates between one perihelion and the next, the distance Mercury travels between passing a particular angle in the heliocentric frame and next passing that angle (i.e. when it has gone around the Sun), or the distance Mercury travels in a time equal to the period derived from the osculating elements.  Because of this multitude of different definitions, giving orbital circumference to many places is non-sensical.  I have added an 'approximate' mark to the infobox. Michaelbusch 21:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're right - but every planet has these specifications, - so the 'approximate'-mark would make sense at every planet (for the orbital circumference) ? I think so. Meanwhile the other thing : the semi-minor-axis is not important, when there was given a semi-major-axis ? I know: it suggests an ellipse for mercury - but that also does with the semi-major-axis, dont you think so ? If there is a semi-major-axis given, i think its good to give a semi-minor-axis too - like the articles for few other planets (they have the semi-minor-axis - a few ;-)). The 'approximate-mark' pleased me - thanks ;-) - and thanks for the explainings. Greetings, Pygmalion1 (and sorry again, for my weak english) (25. February, 10:30 (CET)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.1.134 (talk) 09:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  a semi-major axis is practically always given, a semi-minor hardly ever. The mathematical properties of the semi are very special, and it is constantly used in astronomical calculations. The semi-major is usually what people mean when they talk about "average" of "mean" distance. I agree with your earlier comment; we can round off a few more places. Saros136 09:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Pygmalion1, there are other problems here, too. 
First, b can be calculated using only the semi-major axis a and eccentricity e. I got a number only about 450 meters different than yours, ending with a .453 I used an infinite series formula for the circumference (which uses a and e), getting 359976739.60 km. I calculated it with Excel. (Then decided to check against an even higher-precision calculator-right on the money) The problem here is that the given numbers aren't precise enough to calculate to the nearest km. Lower e and higher a gives greater circumference, changing the numbers (adding or subtracting .5 and .000000005) gives a range of 6.6 km. 
Actually, the actual perihelion varies by hundreds of km. Saros136 11:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your fast answer, and your work with the values of distances and orbital circumference.  You handle the values good - but there are great differences between the formulas for ellipse's. Espescially, when the e-value is so high, like the mercury-e > 0.2 . I used two formulas - in the first : the one with the numeric integration (link in my first posting to this thread), and in the other the last equation for U at : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse (at the bottom, with the number 6). These two formulas give the same (!) value for the orbital circumference. For the second equation i used my calculator with 13 digits precision (which could take the whole formula in one row). The second formula give a precision (error)  for the orbital circumference, that is under 1 * 10^-9 . Thats less than 100 meters, for the mercury orbital circumference , so i trust these equations. But i know : there are many equations for the circumference of ellipses, which has a greater error (ignores the precission of the a, e, etc. - if the formula is not presice enough- the precise values dont matters). But thanks again for the verification of my calculations. Greetings, Pygmalion1 (26. February 2007 , 20:03 (CET)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.1.134 (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  semi-minor-axis and orbital circumference 

message: I threw together an animated version of the orbital resonance graphic, I think it may help illustrate the idea a little better, at least to the layman, but I wanted to see what you all think first. --Age234 21:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ...And it's not showing up.  It's there when you click on the broken image.  Weird. --Age234 21:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very nice! I've seen Wikipedia occasionally choke on thumbnails like this, perhaps it's having trouble reducing an animated gif? You could try uploading a manually shrunken version in addition to the full-sized one. Also, I'd suggest putting the image on Wikimedia Commons instead, that way every language of Wikipedia can use it. Bryan Derksen 00:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

text: It would be a bit more "natural", imho, to have the arrow point to the sun at alternate perihelia rather than at alternate aphelia.  —Tamfang 23:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orbital Resonance Animation 

message: I believe the strength of Mercury's magnetic field quoted (1% of Earth's) is in error. I have two astronomy textbooks ("Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond" and "World's Apart") in front of me that say it is "about 10^-4 of earth's" and "about 1/3000th of earth's", respectively. 141.209.165.222 13:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed it to "about 0.1%", since that's well within an order of magnitude of 1/3000th. What edition is your copy of "Astronomy"? I put in a citation for the 4th edition (2004) edition since that's what Amazon handed me when I searched, and I expect the figure is unlikely to have changed much in other editions, but it's still good to ensure the citation is as accurate as possible. Bryan Derksen 00:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magnetic field strengh? 

message: Maybe if Wikipedia allows lowercase titles in the future, this article can be at Mercury while the article on element would be at mercury. Voortle 23:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury the planet versus the element 

message: In the main pic for this article, there is something that appears to be a prominant surface feature.  It's the thing that looks like an arm with a Pac-Man puppet reaching down from the top of the planet.  I couldn't find mention of that particular feature in the article, so I'm wondering if the "feature" is just an area of the planet that wasn't scanned by whatever probe or telescope took the picture.  If somebody has that info, please include it in the article so I and others like me will be less confused!  JSC ltd 15:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At the image's description page :Image:Reprocessed Mariner 10 image of Mercury.jpg it says "The smooth band is an area of which no images were taken", is that the feature you're referring to? I like your description of what it looks like. :) Bryan Derksen 18:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, yes.  I should have remembered the old axiom, "when all else fails, read the image description!"  Thanks for clearing this up for me.  JSC ltd 15:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surface feature? 

message: On Yahoo just minutes ago, apparently...  Didn't put it in the article because it was made featured-status by likely-superior writers, who'd know better how to incorporate it. --Chr.K. 13:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Cornell article  Apparently there are other elements in the core with lower melting points. Brian Pearson 01:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Molten fluid interior 

message: I've checked dictionary.com and the IPA pronunciation is ˈmɜrkyəri. May i know why it is an ɹi behind?  Thanks. —Sengkang 04:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronuciation 

message: "Despite its slow 176-day-long rotation..." Is this right? Elsewhere it says 58 days. Richard75 23:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 176-day figure is for Mercury's "day" (noon to noon), whereas the planet rotates every 58 days. In the context of the magnetosphere, I would guess that the planetary rotation is the significant detail. Thoughts? --Ckatzchatspy 23:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rotation 

message: The article gives a variety of atmospheric constituents but is unreferenced. Here at NSSDC they give values which are very different. I would be inclined to believe NASA rather than the unreferenced values given in this article, at least that data is traceable. However, does anyone have a reference for the values that are currently in the article? Deuar 13:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  atmosphere composition 

message: I am an editor on Simple English Wikipedia, and I have researched the facts about the "Very Good Article" status. In Simple English Wikipedia, "Very Good Articles" are not meant to have a single red link, yet I see that this article has one red link in the category: Advance of perihelion. 
Also, in the same category, there is a link that makes no sense.
Either you fix these, or delete them. otherwise, this page may be likely to lose its very good article status.
83.76.249.93 11:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very good Article Status (red link problem) 

message: I have added a section called "The Future of Mercury".  I was not sure what section to put this in or if people even want this included in the article.  I do think some of this is worth mentioning somewhere in the article.  I mentioned, "Current theories suggest that in 7.7 billion years, when the Sun has exhausted its central supply of hydrogen and has become a red giant, that the Sun will engulf Mercury."  References: NewScientist and The Once and Future Sun
-- Kheider 20:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Sun won't burn for another 7.7 Gyr.  5 Gyr is a better number. Michaelbusch 21:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Future of Mercury 

message: There's an space splitting the value of Mercury's eccentricity (0.205 30294). I guess it misses a "6" in that place but I'm not an expert. Regards.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.147.38.227 (talk) 01:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Space in the Eccentricity value 

message: I added information about Mercury as a former moon of Venus as the last paragraph of Internal Structure which it probably is but this is rarely mentioned. There is also the question of it being the smallest planet; I consider it to be the smallest MAJOR planet. See my website astro-taxonomy.net for a definition of planet and major planet. Great article by the way, deserving of FA assessment. Star Guy.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpell (talk • contribs) 08:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A well made contribution, though perhaps it would be better placed in another subsection; such as Orbit and rotation? Nigholith (talk) 08:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins 

message: First images in: see: Encounter Observation Phases
Serendipodous 22:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  MESSENGER results 

message: Hey guys, I've looked at this on two different browsers, and both times, when I look at the "Radar Image of Polar Ice Cap" photo, it's positioned in such a way that it's cutting off text in the paragraph about the Geological makeup of Mercury. I'm just learning about formatting, so I'm not sure how to do it, but maybe someone else can fix it? Editortothemasses (talk) 12:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting Problem with "Polar Ice Cap" Section 

message: I've added a reading of this article.
MasterDirk 05:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is now a Spoken Article 

message: I changed the intro to indicate that Mariner was "the first of two satellites to approach Mercury...", now that MESSENGER has arrived at Mercury. Hopefully this isn't considered controversial... TMSTKSBK (talk) 14:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro out of date / add arrival of MESSENGER. 

message: I like that the Messenger image is now the main photo for the page, as it's cool to have a hi-res picture when one wasn't previously available.  I liked the old photo, though, for one reason - the color.  I think a black and white photo detracts from the "atmosphere" of the article - Mercury, in my mind, has always had a reddish tint to it.  I liked the Mariner photo that was up before, and is now found lower on the page.  I have a colorized version of the Messenger photo that I matched (more or less) to the color on the Mariner photograph which I think might look good (or anyone else could make one, I don't really care) - the only problem is copyright info.  On NASA's site, the Messenger photo is credited variously to Nasa, Johns Hopkins, and at least one or two other research institutes.  I don't know what that means for a derivative (colorized) verision, if such a thing would even be possible.  Anybody have any thoughts/input about the subject?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.165.236 (talk) 18:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main Photo 

message: Mariner 10 no longer represents the best source or most recent of information regarding Mercury. --Starks (talk) 16:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do not revert the main photo! 

message: The article mentions "heavily cratered" - can someone add to the surface geology section a statement discussing whether Mercury is more heavily cratered than, say, the Moon?  And explain why?  I envision asteroids smashing into Mercury at higher velocity than they'd smash into anything else because they've been pulled by the Sun more strongly and for longer than an asteroid smashing into anything else in the solar system.  Tempshill (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How heavy is 'heavily cratered'? 

message: now this should definitely be the front image, it's very good quality and TRUE color [and almost total perspective)
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=143  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SquallLeonhart ITA (talk • contribs) 00:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a nice image, but it's still false color, despite the headline. It incorporates an infrared component, to accentuate color differences - see the description. -- Avenue (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Still better than B&W. I uploaded the image, then cropped it and re-uploaded. Does it look distorted to anyone else? The image itself is fine; it just gets distorted when embedded. kwami (talk) 01:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I know everyone's excited about color images, but this one looks both fuzzy and distorted.  I'd prefer clarity over color.  I also don't think false color photos should be the front image.  X3210 (talk) 02:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finally a true color image 

message: Crust = 100-200 km
Mantle = 600 km
Core = 1800 km
Total = 2500-2600 km
But Mercury's radius is only 2440 km!
I have read elsewhere that the 600 km refers to the lithosphere, which consists of the crust + the mantle.
Eroica (talk) 14:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crust and Mantle 

message: What's this blue stuff the Messanger probe found? Shouldn't we all go nuts about it? I'll sign later.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.237.226.180 (talk) 11:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blue Stuff? 

message: I reworded the intro somewhat, hopefully for the better, and added two fact tags: I've always seen the symbol for Mercury described as Hermes' caduceus, not the caduceus plus head and hat, and the Sumerian name looks like it might have lumped phonograms and determinatives together. sd/- sumit
kwami (talk) 06:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  (fact) 

message: What is up with all the attacks today? Have the vandals decid to target this page? Or some school asked about a paper on mercury and they are venting their frustrations. Should we request a semi-prot? Samuel Sol (talk) 19:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean today? 3 days ago there were 8 attacks. But I'll protect it if you like. kwami (talk) 19:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I reverted the page at least once today. Other editors reverted more (I remember two at least). It looks calmer now, so it may not be necessary. But I will keep an eye if it continues. Samuel Sol (talk) 19:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Basing myself on this comment during Neptune's FAC. I'm removing from the main article the foreign names of the planet. And copying it below.
:The Greeks of Hesiod's time called it Stilbon ("the gleaming") and Hermaon.
:In India, the planet was named Budha (बुध), after the son of Chandra (the Moon). The Chinese and Sinoxenic cultures know the planet as the "water star" (水星), after one of the Five Elements. The Hebrews named it Kokhav Hamah (כוכב חמה), "star of the hot one" ("the hot one" being the Sun). 
:Our name for the planet comes from the Romans, who named it after the Roman god Mercury, which they equated with the Greek Hermes and the Babylonian Nabu.
Samuel Sol (talk) 17:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I left the part on the body, although I'm not sure it belongs in the article. More comments about ancient observations would be awarented(sp?). Samuel Sol (talk) 17:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll see if I can find anything useful... Kaldari (talk) 17:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Still on the name, I'm not sure about using Planets as source. Is it reliable? Samuel Sol (talk) 19:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, strangely that was the best source I could find on the Sumerian names of all the planets. I'll see if I can find something better. Kaldari (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Beat you to it :) That one took some digging, BTW, but apparently it is the definitive source. Kaldari (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sweet. Well done mate. Damn work and most of the internet blocked :P Samuel Sol (talk) 20:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Also, while Hunger and Pingree translate the name as "the jumping planet", a strictly literal translation would be more like "wild sheep, bull/steer of the sun". Although since there are apparently a million different ways to translate Sumerian, I think "the jumping planet" is as good as it gets. Kaldari (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I added a shorter version of the note above to the article notes, since I think it might be useful to people actually researching the historical names. Kaldari (talk) 21:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Kaldari. That answers my concern about someone mixing up determinatives with phonograms. By the way, the Chinese name was correct, at least for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Oh, and in Japanese, Wednesday is literally 'water day' - an apparent loan translation. — kwami (talk) 09:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Language Names 

message: It seems that every hour this article pops up on my watch list with s.o. reverting vandalism. It's FA - shouldn't it have some minimal protection? — kwami (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism 

message: Our article currently says that Mercury has been known since the 3rd millennium BC, but we don't provide any reference for this statement. The MUL.APIN record referenced in the citation I added only dates back to about 1370 B.C. Anyone know of earlier records than that? Kaldari (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: After doing some more digging, I'm afraid our entire section on Sumerian and Babylonian records of Mercury may be wrong. The earliest record of Mercury I can track down is from the MUL.APIN, which dates to c. 1400 BCE. By that time, the Sumerians were long gone and the Babylonians were running things. According to our article, the MUL.APIN it is a record of "Babylonian astrology", not Sumerian. The MUL.APIN tablets are written in the Sumerian language, however, which may be the source of the confusion. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the history of the Sumerians and Babylonians to feel comfortable rewriting the paragraph. Also, I don't know if this is the actual first record of Mercury or not. Sources on this issue seem to be virtually non-existant. Can anyone offer some assistance in sorting this out? Kaldari (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried cleaning up the wording of this section a bit. Someone needs to add info on the Mayas knowledge of Mercury as well. Kaldari (talk) 20:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest records of Mercury 

message: Parts of this article look like they would not survive a FAC. There are long stretches of facts with no citations to back them up and the citations are not properly formatted. I'm also seeing a few stub paragraphs. This may need an FAR soon.—RJH (talk) 21:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. This article has undergone a lot of revision since it was promoted to FA two years ago, especially due to the recent MESSENGER fly-by. It could use some clean-up and additional citations. I've tried to clean-up the Magnetic field and (sup) Ancient astronomers sections, but there are still areas that need more help. The first four paragraphs of the Orbit and rotation section for example, have no citations at all. Kaldari (talk) 18:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

text: If this article is demoted, who do you anticipate will do the work required to return it to FA status?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.70.90.206 (talk) 23:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are several dedicated individuals in Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects and Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System who have performed much work bringing the Solar System articles up to FA. (See Wikipedia:Featured topics/Solar System.) But once a page reaches FA, I think it still needs regular upkeep to keep it at that level.—RJH (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still FA? 

message: How old is Mercury? The articles on Sun and Earth claim their respective ages to be nearly same 4-5 billion years. So I guess, Mercury too must be a twin.Anwar (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Age of Mercury 

message: The source cited for the axial tilt gives a value of "~0", rather than 0.01 as listed in the article body. So it is unclear where that value came from. The conclusion of the following reference gives a value of 1.6 arcminutes for the mean obliquity:
:
That would correspond to 0.027°. Does anybody have a better reference? If not perhaps the article should use the above? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I added two sources that list the axial tilt as approaching zero - a JPL page that lists it as zero, and a journal that lists Mercury as having "No axial tilt". Whether that means "No appreciable axial tilt" is unclear. Let me look at this ref and see if I can correlate the three. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  19:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  1.6 arcminutes is pretty close to no axial tilt; that's near the limit of resolution of the human eye. But it's still good to be accurate.—RJH (talk) 19:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. I'm shifting refs now. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  19:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obliquity 

message: Multiple astronomy articles present ancient Greek names for the objects, including Sirius, Venus, Mars, &c. For some reason, editor "Rubble pile" has taken a special interest in removing the Greek name from this article. Is there a consensus for the removal of the Greek name from this page in particular? I do think we should have a consistent policy about this across wikipedia. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 15:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't see a reason to delete them. Serendipodous 16:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no need to include the original names in Greek rather than the transliterations. Seems like trivia to me rather than encyclopedic content. We don't include the native name of the planet in any other languages, why Greek? Besides, we only seem to have one of the original Greek names anyway (the planet had two names in Greek). Kaldari (talk) 16:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Patently untrue. Venus#Venus_in_human_culture, Mars#Historical_connections, Jupiter#Human_culture and Saturn#History_and_exploration list the planetary name in multiple languages, including Greek. The names are present because they were culturally important.—RJH (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Aren't we talking about Mercury here? Besides, the transliteration is completely adequate for our uses. Why would we need to also list it in the native script? What's wrong with just listing the Greek names as Stilbon and Hermaon? I don't suspect that many of the people reading this article can actually read Greek script. Kaldari (talk) 18:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I misread your message. *sigh* However, there are still numerous examples of both the original greek and the transliteration (such as Galaxy and Milky Way) If a reason is needed, then I suppose for fact checking of the transliteration and also for consistent web searches. I see no problem with including both.—RJH (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't the fact that we only have a native Greek version of one of the names a problem? Anyone know how to write Hermaon in Greek script? Kaldari (talk) 19:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And don't forget the cuneiform letters for the Babylonian name in the previous paragraph.Rubble pile (talk) 19:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck with that one! Kaldari (talk) 19:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

text: If we find a means to include the alternative Greek name, then I see no reason not to do so. I've seen articles with two forms. Likewise, the Sirius article includes the heiroglyphic version of it's name. I'm sure there is somebody out there who could supply the Babylonian rune in time. So I'm still not seeing a problem, as long as we're consistent.—RJH (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We're not consistent at all. Some articles have planet names in Kanji, some have Greek, some have nothing but English transliterations. Even within this one article, we're not consistent. We have the native Greek version of one Greek name, a transliteration for another Greek name, and the Anglicized versions for 2 more Greek names. If you want consistency, I would suggest reverting back to Rubble pile's edit as a good start. Also, it's trivial information. An English encyclopedia article doesn't need the cuniform, hieroglyphic, Greek, Kanji, and Braille versions of every planet name. If you want that, we should start a list article to list all of them, not just the one or two that seem interesting to us. Kaldari (talk) 22:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore, statements such as "the planet is called X in Greek" should be cited to a reliable source. If the reliable source gives a transliteration of the Greek we can trust it to be an accurate transliteration. Hence, we would only need the Greek letters "for fact checking of the transliteration" if the reliable source didn't provide one.  Rubble pile (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone is still interested, Hermaon (a variant form of Hermes) is the transliterated version of Ἑρμάων. Reference:  --Dr pda (talk) 11:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you. Unfortunately the font set on my PC isn't displaying the first character properly.—RJH (talk) 14:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't really object to the Greek so long as we're actually consistant, and it doesn't turn into a list of names in other languages. Kaldari (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure whether there's a consensus on that, but perhaps this whole issue should be covered in the MoS? Sometimes the names in other languages have historical cultural aspects (such as Arabic names of stars), so it probably makes sense to include them. But just copying a name that's already in the Languages box along the left wouldn't make sense otherwise.—RJH (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

text: The name Mercury is taken from the Roman Mercurius, which was in turn adapted from the Greek Hermes, which was in turn adapted from the Babylonian equivalent whose name I can't remember. So yes I'd say that the Greek name for Mercury is of encyclopedic import. Serendipodous 15:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've cleaned up the wording a bit in the article. Let me know if that looks acceptable to everyone. Kaldari (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks good to me. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek letters 

message: If the problem of the geology section is one of comprehensiveness, then surely the Geology of Mercury article should be re-merged back into this one? Serendipodous 20:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that might go a little far, but there's definitely some good material there that can be added here. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  01:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some items (and refs) from the Geology article to expand this one. Some of the paragraphs were redundant - obviously this article was paraphrased from that one - but the structure was helpful. I also split the temperature items from Geology, and combined them with Atmosphere for a "Surface Conditions" section. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  13:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geology of Mercury 

message: Just for reference here is the August 25th 2006 version.  It only used 23 references. -- Kheider (talk) 03:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For comparison, we just broke 100 references today. Considering that this article was promoted in May 2006, that's impressive. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  14:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  August 2006 Version 

message: This section seems to be the biggest challenge, apart from the magnetosphere. It's tagged for cleanup and expansion, but I can't see a real good way to expand it. Most of the items I'd add are already referred to under Surface Geology and similar sections, so no need to duplicate those items here. As for cleanup, everything is referenced, and the section flows linearly from crust to core. Any ideas on how to clear these tags? UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  14:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really see how it could be expanded. It seems fine to me. Serendipodous 17:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Internal Structure 

message: could probably do with an image like this, since it focuses on naked eye observation. The transit image was better suited to the ground based telescope section. As for the extra Mariner 10 image, I couldn't find a place for it, so I ditched it, if that's OK. Serendipodous 17:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The only public domain(ish) image like that I can find is a photo in a NASA article here. Would that work? UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  18:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's difficult to know, since it's probably copyright of the photographer. Still, if its status can be determined I think it would work. Serendipodous 18:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

text: That'd be the best option, I think. I can't tell if the Bulgarian image is free or not, but I'm reasonably certain that the NASA image isn't. It'd be nice to have a free image for that section. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  19:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Observation section 

message: Does anyone have a clue what that means? Serendipodous 22:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ...Lobe-ish, maybe? It's unclear. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  15:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Lobate-shaped means it has a lobe, as in a lava flow. I'm not sure what the "colour units" was meant to communicate, but perhaps the ground has a different hue than the surroundings? I've sometimes seen that on moon shots when the surface colors get exaggerated. Still, it's pretty unclear.—RJH (talk) 17:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I can remember this referes to the results of Mariner's 10 image reprocessing. It showed that some units in the smooth planes have lobate shapes resembling lava flows. This units are slightly different in color from their surroundings. Ruslik (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "lobate-shaped colour units" 

message: The summary info (in the side box) gives mercury's mean surface temp at two latitudes as 340K (equator) and 200K (high latitude).  The main article gives the (presumably global) mean surface temp as 442K, with reference to a NASA fact sheet.  Someone care to research and resolve the apparent discrepancy?  The "average" can mean a lot of different things...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.203.222.78 (talk) 00:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  surface temperature 

message: I think the main article could be improved if there were a link to a list of science fiction books and movies dealing with the planet Mercury, or involving Mercury in some way.
For instance, I seem to remember a movie that came out a couple years ago, where some researchers were traveling towards the Sun, and they stopped in at Mercury.  What was the name of that movie?  I wish I could remember. 198.177.27.29 (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: there is. Serendipodous 07:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  The film I was wondering about, is Sunshine (2007 film).  198.177.25.10 (talk) 20:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury in science fiction 

message: The full set of phases of Mercury were suspected for some time before 1639.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 16:25, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  1639 

message: Which gas is the most common in the atmosphere?
2008-12-04  Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.167.70 (talk) 14:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cemical composition of the atmosphere 

message: I noticed that with other planets we are brought automatically to their page instead of their disambiguation. Perhaps Mercury should follow suit? 69.243.42.249 (talk) 17:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Mercury's disambiguated because although the other ancient planets are the most prominent use of their name, with only the Roman gods to take second place, Mercury has to compete with the element mercury. --Patteroast (talk) 14:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation 

message: The introduction seems to lack any mention of the October 2008 Messenger pass and how much that mapped. 82.163.24.100 (talk) 23:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No offense intended, but to me the lead seems unbalanced in its coverage and doesn't quite satisfy WP:LEAD. There is an entire paragraph on ancient beliefs and half a paragraph on spacecraft. By contrast, there is no coverage of historical telescope observations, the plains section, spin orbit resonance or, perhaps most notably (at least to me), the advance of the perihelion. I think the missing topics should be summarized and the overemphasized subjects toned down.—RJH (talk) 17:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I made some additions to the lead in an attemptto better satisfy WP:LEAD. There's a separate paragraph on exploration now, and hopefully that can be updated with Messenger news.—RJH (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: Am I mistaken in believing that there is some confusion between the second paragraph in Mercury (planet)#Ancient astronomers and the second paragraph in Venus#Historic_understanding? For example, both list Phosphoros as the name for the "Morning Star", presumably in reference to the current article. The text from 'In Latin, the word "Lucifer",' onward (in this article) could just as easily be plunked down on the Venus article. It seems squirrely to me.—RJH (talk) 23:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In Latin, the word "Lucifer", meaning "Light-Bringer" (from lux, lucis, "light", and ferre, "to bear, bring"), is a name for Venus in its dawn appearances, since it preceeds the sun.  The Latin Vulgate version of the Bible used this word twice to refer to the Morning Star: once in  to translate the Greek word "Φωσφόρος" (Phosphoros),The Greek word Ἑωσφόρος (Heosphoros), meaning "Dawn-Bringer", which is also used as a name for the Morning Star, is not found in the New Testament. which has the same literal meaning of "Light-Bringer"; and once in  to translate "הילל" (Hêlēl), which also means "Morning Star".
Sorry.—RJH (talk) 18:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury vs. Venus 

message: This is a concern regarding all the planet and planetoid pages, but I don't know where ot post such.  If anyone knows where this comment is better suited, I'll copy it there.
Regarding the planet (and minor planet) pages, should we add a reference regarding the formulas used in calculating the following?
"Mean Density" -- do the pages use Wikipedia Page definition for "Mean Density" (R1 = (2a+b)/3 -- a being Equatorial [or longest] radius; b being the Polar [or shortest] radius)?  Or are the pages using another formula (e.g., an average between axes (a+b)/2?  Regarding Radius, and its affect on Volume, are the Volume values calculated using the Volumetric Radius (yet another radius calc), or Mean Radius, or Average Radius?
"Volume" -- The Volumetric Radius (R3 = the CubeRoot of a2b), is used to determine Volume for "spherical" ellipsoids (i.e, those with a relatively circular equatorial zone -- hence, a relatively constant a axis value, and a different b axis value.  For irregular shapes (planetoids [most asteroids, many minor planets], and satellites [moons]) require more-complex formulas to determine Volume.  The radii around their "equatorial" or "polar" region are not constant -- lumps, bumps, cookie-dough shaped irregular "spheres", etc.
Bottom line to my rambling ... I think we need to be consistent in our labeling.  If the pages show "Mean Radius" or "Volume", one standard appraoch should be used. Since many technical astronomical sources are inconsistent, it may be a challenge.  Still, I think the page(s) should note what formulas are used for such (or, at the very least, reference if a certain page is using a different [non-Wikipedia-defined] formula.  My assumption is if a planet page uses the term "Mean Radius" or "Volume", it will agree with the Wikipedia page defining "Mean Radius" and "Volume" calcs for planets, planetoids. Tesseract501 16:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for bringing this up. My suggestion is to take this up on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects. This would impact all of the planet pages, so WP:ASTRO is a good place to get consensus, at least among the astronomy buffs.—RJH (talk) 00:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Mean density of Mercury was not calculated, it was taken from the cited source. When the dimensions and mass of a body are known, it is usually  possible to find a reliable source for the density. In other cases calculations are sometimes used as crude estimates. Ruslik (talk) 14:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radius and Volume Values on the Planet Pages 

message: I think something's logically not right with this sentence:
Water vapor is present, being brought to Mercury by some combination of processes such as: comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water "where none existed before from the ingredients of solar wind and Mercury rock" (both contain hydrogen and oxygen), and "reservoirs of water ice in small areas of Mercury's poles where local topography creates permanently shadowed spots in crater walls that might trap water over the age of the solar system"
Reservoir of water ice is not a process. Also, how can it be brought out of ice if it says it can be trapped forever? I know that ref says it but it's not a peer-revieved scientific literature, just news, while peer-reviewed paper, based on the abstract, doesn't mention the third possibility.--Adi4000 (talk) 08:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I agree, that does need fixing. Possibly it was intended to mean that some of the trapped ice is steadily being released by some external process, such as impacts. But that is speculation.—RJH (talk) 23:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  water vapor 

message: ThePlanets_Orbits_Mercury_PolarView.svg
While the Earth's orbit often is drawn as a circle, Mercury's is too eccentric. Especially a picture that purports to show Newtonian motion (faster near the sun), it would be proper to have an elliptical orbit drawn. This is exacerbated by having Mercury be of different sizes, which (combined with the actual circle) creates an illusion of some kind of perspective.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwrede (talk • contribs) 08:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem is, Mercury's ellipse is 98% as wide as it is long. A circle with the Sun slightly off to one side. The one in the Spin–orbit resonance section is exaggerated to make the point. Saros136 (talk) 10:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mercury orbit picture misleading 

message: Further to the talk above in section "close approach cite", and following on from my request for clarification on the article, I also went to try out SOLEX for the first time. I only looked at trying to verify the close approaches claims up to 3000, and in brief I am satisfied the claims are both verifiable and, for what I checked, verified. The rest is a long post so I've wrapped it a hide template.
After I launched SOLEX (on a dual processor Windows Vista machine). I saw SOLEX consumed about 30 percent of the CPU when idle and about 50 percent when calculating, and this hindered by net connection, but it did work.
I typed "4" for the maximum star magnitude and then typed "1" to select DE421 "all planets and minor bodies".
The user manual states: "DE421.  *New*  The starting conditions for the numerical integration are read from a library fitting the latest JPL DE421 ephemerides (2008).2  Obliquity and precessional angles are computed using Laskar and Williams’ formulae." followed by note 3, which follows:
(3) (a) Laskar, J.  “Secular Terms of Classical Planetary Theories Using the Results of General Theories”  Astron. Astrophys. 157 (1986), 59. (b) Williams, J. G. “Contributions to the Earth’s Obliquity Rate, Precession and Nutation”  Astron. J. 108 (1994), 711.
I then typed 2009,03,30 as the start date, and pressed enter to select the default 1 day step size.
SOLEX then displayed a table of the major planets and I checked Mercury's data:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC         delta
 2009-Mar-30 00:00     00 32 15.246 +2 6 48.29    1.34657923
 2009-Mar-31 00:00     00 39 29.373 +3 1 48.71    1.34236608
... against NASA's horizons ephemeris:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC         delta
 2009-Mar-30 00:00     00 32 15.57 +02 06 50.7    1.34660450012112 
 2009-Mar-31 00:00     00 39 29.71 +03 01 51.1    1.34240113491257 
I then pressed the "Y" key to run the close approach finder. I pressed "S" to choose Spatial.
I typed "1/3" to select approaches between Mercury (1) and Earth (3).
I typed 82110 for the closest approach ditance, in units of 1000 km.
I typed 3500 for the end-year of the search.
The results showed a lot of approaches (I should have used 82100 as distance instead),
but the 2679-06-10 approach was listed as 82.092295 Gm, which date agrees with NASA.
Minimum approach distances became closer as the centuries went by.
SOLEX stored the results in the "USERDATA" folder as file "MINDIST.DAT", and this was human-readable.
Here is an edited excerpt.
  Conditions of minimum spatial distance
   #1     #2       Date        TT           JD2000       Dm (Gm)
    -1     -3   2679/06/10 17:06:48    248160.21306    82.092295
   ...
    -1     -3   2725/06/11 23:17:17    264962.47034    82.092270
   ...
    -1     -3   2988/06/14 08:51:04    361024.86879    82.081392
How do those figures compare to NASA's horizons?
For the year 2679 Horizons found the closest about 5 minutes later than SOLEX:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC               delta  
 2679-Jun-10 17:12     05 14 50.39 +20 28 33.3    .548752997931168 
Google tells me .548752997931168 Astronomical Units = 82 092 351 km, or 82.092351 Gm,
off by 56 kilometres.
For 2725 Horizons was again about 5 minutes later:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC               delta  
 2725-Jun-11 23:23     05 19 43.05 +20 30 20.3    .548752892115657
.548752892115657 Astronomical Units = 82 092 335.2 km, or 82.0923352 Gm, off by 65 km.
For 2988 Horizons was yet again about 5 minutes later:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC              delta  
2988-Jun-14 08:56     05 35 11.23 +20 37 04.9    .548680119931325
.548680119931325 Astronomical Units = 82 081 448.6 kilometers, or 82.0814486 Gm, off by 57 km.
Finally Solex found the closest approach from 2009 to 2020 occuring at 2015:
  Conditions of minimum spatial distance
   #1     #2       Date        TT           JD2000       Dm (Gm)  
    -1     -3   2015/05/31 03:24:45      5628.64219    82.132823
And NASA finds one 5 minutes later:
 Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A.__(a-apparent)__DEC              delta  
 2015-May-31 03:30     04 29 28.01 +19 34 29.8   .549023850264077
.549023850264077 Astronomical Units = 82 132 870 km, or 82.132870 Gm, off by 47 km.
It seems the difference between SOLEX and NASA, is a mostly constant difference of about 5 minutes and about 50 km.
84user (talk) 22:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks so much for helping. The small difference in time is because that Horizons option factors in light time and gives the apparent close approach, whereas Solex doesn't. I used the vector option, and made sure I did not have another switch on that would have brought light-time in. I had to calculate the distances in Excel. The agreement is much, much better. Saros136 (talk) 07:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I just did AD 871. The agreement was to the second. I'll post. SOLEX gives 871/5/10 00:47:24 to it Saros136 (talk) 07:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  And here it is. Asterisks in the a column mark the closest. The columns after the date give the X,Y, and Z vectors. Then use the formula, square root of the sum of the squares, to get the distance at the far right. Saros136 (talk) 08:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Variable, since by default it models solar mass loss. He nowhere mentions G, but does give the solar mass. But given the stunning agreement with Horizons, I'd say any differences in the physical values adopted make no difference. Saros136 (talk) 03:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifying SOLEX 

message: The section on the exosphere includes 2 different lists of what it is comprised of. This is both redundant and confusing. Any ideas for how to rewrite this section? Kaldari (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contents of the exosphere 

message: "It can only be viewed in morning or evening twilight." This can't be right. If it can be up to 28o from the sun, then for some parts of Earth's surface it can be visible when the sun is 28o below the horizon, and it can be up to 10o above the horizon when the sun is at least 18o below the horizon, at least in the tropics.
69.140.12.180 (talk) 14:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 30° corresponds to two hours of the Earth's rotation. Also you usually want an object to be at some elevation above the horizon to see it clearly. So at best you'd see it within 1–2 hours before sunrise or after sunset, and that is only when the ecliptic is approaching a perpendicular to the horizon.—RJH (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untrue statement 

message: The picture at the beginning of the article shouldn't be a false color one.  Maybe put that one in later on, but I think the first photo should be accurate. Knick99 (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? This provides more information than an image based upon human visual limitations, and you wouldn't be able to view this scene from Earth anyway so it's not misleading.—RJH (talk) 18:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading picture 

message: I noticed that the temperatures given are in Kelvin; since we are not all scientists or engineers could a Celsius and/or Fahrenheit be given too?    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.164.37.128 (talk) 12:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My thought is that most people have no problem getting the overall scale of Kelvins.  For people that are more demanding, is it that difficult to look up kelvin and use a calculator?  Listing numbers in multiple systems would clutter the article horribly.  I wiki'ed K so that people can look it up quicker. -- Kheider (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's silly to use a scale that few people are familiar with. This article is read by kids too. I have noticed the preference of scientists to update Wikipedia articles and use Kelvins or other unfamiliar units and I think it detracts from the quality and readability of Wikipedia. Cshay (talk) 05:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As a scientist myself, I say I agree with Cshay. It's easier for technical people to convert to Kelvin than for non-technical to convert to Celsius. WP:UNITS however seems to indicate only SI units and some exceptions not including the Celsius. I'll try to do some policy-digging and see. --Cyclopia (talk) 09:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Digging WP:UNITS talk archives, it seems the best thing to do is to use both. I'd leave Fahrenheit away. I'll edit to provide Celsius conversions. --Cyclopia (talk) 09:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, I don't know how to do that without breaking the template. I've put the numbers as comments in the template, I welcome more skilled editors to help! --Cyclopia (talk) 09:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is why I don't like conversions.  Your conversions seem to ignore significant figures.  Why are you listing 380 K (2-3 sig figs) as 106.85 C (with 5 sig figs)?? -- Kheider (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

text:  Since this is a scientific article, the usual preference is to use SI units. If the consensus was against providing metric to archaic unit conversions, the Fahrenheit is not appropriate per MOS:CONVERSIONS. I think the existing Fahrenheit conversion in the lead should be removed so it is consistent with the remainder of the article.—RJH (talk) 16:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surface conditions and "atmosphere" (exosphere) section 

message: If you look at the URLs in what are now references 38 and 103, you will see that they are the same.  Therefore at least one of them is obviously wrong.  The first one is correct: the URL is for that paper by L.V. Ksanfomality.  The correct URL for the other paper, by G. Colombo, is http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v208/n5010/abs/208575a0.html.
I cannot fix this because the article is semi-protected; would someone else please do so?  --65.95.48.42 (talk) 07:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed the incorrect DOI on the second source and added in an extra link for good measure. Thank you for identifying this issue.—RJH (talk) 18:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong URL on cite