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105-443: Stark was born on Mercury . His parents were employees of the mineral extraction company Mercury Metals and Mining. After his parents died in a cave-in caused by a quake, Stark was adopted by a tribe of Mercurian aborigines who are described as hairy and possessing snouts. They gave him the name N'Chaka, meaning "the man without a tribe". He believed himself to be one of them, rather than a human, and endured their rigorous way of life in

210-406: A 3:2 ratio. This relationship is called spin–orbit resonance , and sidereal here means "relative to the stars". Consequently, one solar day (sunrise to sunrise) on Mercury lasts for around 176 Earth days: twice the planet's sidereal year. This means that one side of Mercury will remain in sunlight for one Mercurian year of 88 Earth days; while during the next orbit, that side will be in darkness all

315-484: A collection of short science fiction stories "Alien Earth and Other Stories" (520-00219-075), where Hamilton's 1949 "Alien Earth" was featured along with novelettes by Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and others. Hamilton met his fellow science fiction author and screenwriter Leigh Brackett for the first in the Summer of 1940, but later lost her track during the war years, until they met once again at

420-424: A conduit. Scientists could not quantify the age of the volcanic complex system but reported that it could be on the order of a billion years. The surface temperature of Mercury ranges from 100 to 700 K (−173 to 427 °C; −280 to 800 °F). It never rises above 180 K at the poles, due to the absence of an atmosphere and a steep temperature gradient between the equator and the poles. At perihelion ,

525-447: A diameter of 1,550 km (960 mi), which is about one-third the diameter of the planet (4,880 km or 3,030 mi). Similarly to the Earth 's Moon , Mercury's surface displays an expansive rupes system generated from thrust faults and bright ray systems formed by impact event remnants . Mercury's sidereal year (88.0 Earth days) and sidereal day (58.65 Earth days) are in

630-481: A friend and associate of several Weird Tales veterans, including E. Hoffmann Price and Otis Adelbert Kline ; most notably, he struck up a 20-year friendship with close contemporary Jack Williamson , as Williamson records in his 1984 autobiography Wonder's Child. In the late 1930s Weird Tales printed several striking fantasy tales by Hamilton, most notably "He That Hath Wings" (July 1938), one of his most popular and frequently-reprinted pieces. Hamilton wrote one of

735-401: A full excess turn. Similar, but much smaller, effects exist for other Solar System bodies: 8.6247 arcseconds per century for Venus, 3.8387 for Earth, 1.351 for Mars, and 10.05 for 1566 Icarus . Edmond Hamilton Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. He is known for writing most of

840-474: A general paucity of smaller craters below about 30 km (19 mi) in diameter. Smooth plains are widespread flat areas that fill depressions of various sizes and bear a strong resemblance to lunar maria. Unlike lunar maria, the smooth plains of Mercury have the same albedo as the older inter-crater plains. Despite a lack of unequivocally volcanic characteristics, the localization and rounded, lobate shape of these plains strongly support volcanic origins. All

945-561: A layer of regolith that inhibits sublimation . By comparison, the Antarctic ice sheet on Earth has a mass of about 4 × 10  kg, and Mars's south polar cap contains about 10  kg of water. The origin of the ice on Mercury is not yet known, but the two most likely sources are from outgassing of water from the planet's interior and deposition by impacts of comets. Mercury is too small and hot for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; it does have

1050-528: A layered, chemically heterogeneous crust with large-scale variations in chemical composition observed on the surface. The crust is low in iron but high in sulfur, resulting from the stronger early chemically reducing conditions than is found on other terrestrial planets. The surface is dominated by iron-poor pyroxene and olivine , as represented by enstatite and forsterite , respectively, along with sodium-rich plagioclase and minerals of mixed magnesium, calcium, and iron-sulfide. The less reflective regions of

1155-474: A missing friend. The two expanded novels have inconsistencies with their novella originals. The Secret of Sinharat is almost identical with "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" up to the point at which Stark arrives at Sinharat, but a crucial plot point is revealed earlier in the novella, and further developments diverge from (while occasionally overlapping) the storyline of "Catacombs". "Black Amazon of Mars"

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1260-477: A possibly separate subsequent episode called the Late Heavy Bombardment that ended 3.8 billion years ago. Mercury received impacts over its entire surface during this period of intense crater formation, facilitated by the lack of any atmosphere to slow impactors down. During this time Mercury was volcanically active; basins were filled by magma , producing smooth plains similar to the maria found on

1365-544: A prolonged interval. A "rimless depression" inside the southwest rim of the Caloris Basin consists of at least nine overlapping volcanic vents, each individually up to 8 km (5.0 mi) in diameter. It is thus a " compound volcano ". The vent floors are at least 1 km (0.62 mi) below their brinks and they bear a closer resemblance to volcanic craters sculpted by explosive eruptions or modified by collapse into void spaces created by magma withdrawal back down into

1470-511: A result, although the character's personality and origins are retained, there are few other links between the Skaith novels and the earlier Stark novellas. A final story, Stark and the Star Kings (2005), places Stark into the world of her husband Edmond Hamilton 's Star Kings series, making it a rare collaboration between the two. Mercury (planet) Mercury is the first planet from

1575-459: A revolution would have caused a libration of 23.65° in longitude. For the same reason, there are two points on Mercury's equator, 180 degrees apart in longitude , at either of which, around perihelion in alternate Mercurian years (once a Mercurian day), the Sun passes overhead, then reverses its apparent motion and passes overhead again, then reverses a second time and passes overhead a third time, taking

1680-429: A series of smaller "corpuscules") might exist in an orbit even closer to the Sun than that of Mercury, to account for this perturbation. Other explanations considered included a slight oblateness of the Sun. The success of the search for Neptune based on its perturbations of the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to place faith in this possible explanation, and the hypothetical planet was named Vulcan , but no such planet

1785-452: A short story, in the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales . Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of Weird Tales writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright , that included H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard . Weird Tales would publish 79 works of fiction by Hamilton from 1926 to 1948, making him one of the magazine's most prolific contributors. Hamilton became

1890-540: A single month in these years; the February 1937 issue of the pulp Popular Detective featured three Hamilton stories, one under his name and two under pseudonyms. In the 1940s, Hamilton was the primary force behind the Captain Future franchise , a science fiction pulp designed for juvenile readers that won him many fans, but diminished his reputation in later years when science fiction moved away from space opera. Hamilton

1995-459: A solid, metallic outer core layer, a deeper liquid core layer, and a solid inner core. The composition of the iron-rich core remains uncertain, but it likely contains nickel, silicon and perhaps sulfur and carbon, plus trace amounts of other elements. The planet's density is the second highest in the Solar System at 5.427 g/cm , only slightly less than Earth's density of 5.515 g/cm . If

2100-535: A strong, independent, and attractive black-skinned character as hero for several of her stories was very unusual for the 1940s and 1950s. The effect of these misleading illustrations has been such that Stark is never remembered or referred to by critics as a black-skinned character, though he is clearly described as such in the stories. While Stark is described many times as having very dark skin, he appears to be of white European rather than African descent; Brackett repeatedly tells her readers that Stark's unusual coloring

2205-409: A tenuous surface-bounded exosphere at a surface pressure of less than approximately 0.5 nPa (0.005 picobars). It includes hydrogen , helium , oxygen , sodium , calcium , potassium , magnesium , silicon , and hydroxide , among others. This exosphere is not stable—atoms are continuously lost and replenished from a variety of sources. Hydrogen atoms and helium atoms probably come from

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2310-409: A total of about 16 Earth-days for this entire process. In the other alternate Mercurian years, the same thing happens at the other of these two points. The amplitude of the retrograde motion is small, so the overall effect is that, for two or three weeks, the Sun is almost stationary overhead, and is at its most brilliant because Mercury is at perihelion, its closest to the Sun. This prolonged exposure to

2415-514: Is "almost as dark as his black hair" and an antagonist refers to him scornfully as a "great black ape". The darkness of Stark's skin is reiterated in Enchantress of Venus . Brackett's other Mercurian characters also have black skin (e.g. Jaffa Storm in The Nemesis from Terra ). Brackett's professional illustrators have universally drawn Stark as light-skinned, even sometimes blond. Brackett's use of

2520-519: Is 17%. Research published in 2007 suggests that Mercury has a molten core. The mantle-crust layer is in total 420 km (260 mi) thick. Projections differ as to the size of the crust specifically; data from the Mariner 10 and MESSENGER probes suggests a thickness of 35 km (22 mi), whereas an Airy isostacy model suggests a thickness of 26 ± 11 km (16.2 ± 6.8 mi). One distinctive feature of Mercury's surface

2625-424: Is a rocky body like Earth. It is the smallest planet in the Solar System, with an equatorial radius of 2,439.7 kilometres (1,516.0 mi). Mercury is also smaller —albeit more massive—than the largest natural satellites in the Solar System, Ganymede and Titan . Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material. Mercury appears to have a solid silicate crust and mantle overlying

2730-474: Is due to prolonged exposure to extreme sunlight while growing up on the planet Mercury. Brackett openly created Stark as a pastiche of Edgar Rice Burroughs ' popular John Carter of Mars and Tarzan characters, and Stark's sun-blackened skin is the Mercurian version of Tarzan's sun-bronzed skin. Stark first appeared in a group of novellas published in the pulp magazine Planet Stories . These were: "Queen of

2835-556: Is highly homogeneous, which suggests that Mercury had a magma ocean early in its history, like the Moon. According to current models , Mercury may have a solid silicate crust and mantle overlying a solid outer core, a deeper liquid core layer, and a solid inner core. There are many competing hypotheses about Mercury's origins and development, some of which incorporate collision with planetesimals and rock vaporization. Historically, humans knew Mercury by different names depending on whether it

2940-458: Is in May or November. This occurs about every seven years on average. Mercury's axial tilt is almost zero, with the best measured value as low as 0.027 degrees. This is significantly smaller than that of Jupiter , which has the second smallest axial tilt of all planets at 3.1 degrees. This means that to an observer at Mercury's poles, the center of the Sun never rises more than 2.1 arcminutes above

3045-480: Is keenly aware of the injustices visited on the planetary "primitives" by the colonialist Earth, and tends to side with them against official bodies. At the opening of the story in which he first appears, Stark is evading a twenty-year sentence placed on him for running guns to a Venusian native group that has been resisting Terran colonizers. Years of exposure to heightened sunlight on the planet Mercury has permanently given Stark very dark, almost black skin. His skin

3150-491: Is largely different from People of the Talisman , though founded on a similar premise. Many years later, Brackett returned to the character in a trilogy of books titled The Ginger Star (1974), The Hounds of Skaith (1974) and The Reavers of Skaith (1976). These stories are science fantasies set on a distant but primitive extrasolar planet , since Stark's original Solar System venue had become unacceptable to publishers. As

3255-436: Is stabilized by the variance of the tidal force along Mercury's eccentric orbit, acting on a permanent dipole component of Mercury's mass distribution. In a circular orbit there is no such variance, so the only resonance stabilized in such an orbit is at 1:1 (e.g., Earth–Moon), when the tidal force, stretching a body along the "center-body" line, exerts a torque that aligns the body's axis of least inertia (the "longest" axis, and

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3360-427: Is that Mercury originally had a metal–silicate ratio similar to common chondrite meteorites, thought to be typical of the Solar System's rocky matter, and a mass approximately 2.25 times its current mass. Early in the Solar System's history, Mercury may have been struck by a planetesimal of approximately 1 ⁄ 6 Mercury's mass and several thousand kilometers across. The impact would have stripped away much of

3465-419: Is the presence of numerous narrow ridges, extending up to several hundred kilometers in length. It is thought that these were formed as Mercury's core and mantle cooled and contracted at a time when the crust had already solidified. Mercury's core has a higher iron content than that of any other planet in the Solar System, and several theories have been proposed to explain this. The most widely accepted theory

3570-400: The Mariner 10 and MESSENGER space probes have indicated that the strength and shape of the magnetic field are stable. It is likely that this magnetic field is generated by a dynamo effect, in a manner similar to the magnetic field of Earth. This dynamo effect would result from the circulation of the planet's iron-rich liquid core. Particularly strong tidal heating effects caused by

3675-570: The Captain Future stories. Born in Youngstown, Ohio , he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania . Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and entered Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania at the age of 14, but dropped out at 17. Edmond Hamilton's career as a science fiction writer began with the publication of "The Monster God of Mamurth",

3780-588: The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel , where she and Ray Bradbury invited him to the coast in 1946. On December 31, 1946, Hamilton married her in San Gabriel, California , and moved with her to Kinsman, Ohio . Afterward he would produce some of his best work including his novels The Star of Life (1947), The Valley of Creation (1948), City at World's End (1951) and The Haunted Stars (1960). In this more mature phase of his career, Hamilton moved away from

3885-573: The Sun and the smallest in the Solar System . In English, it is named after the ancient Roman god Mercurius ( Mercury ), god of commerce and communication, and the messenger of the gods. Mercury is classified as a terrestrial planet , with roughly the same surface gravity as Mars . The surface of Mercury is heavily cratered , as a result of countless impact events that have accumulated over billions of years. Its largest crater, Caloris Planitia , has

3990-679: The Time Trapper , and the Legion of Substitute Heroes , among other characters. "The Clash of Cape and Cowl" in World's Finest Comics #153 (Nov. 1965) is the source of an Internet meme in which Batman slaps Robin . Hamilton retired from comics with the publication of "The Cape and Cowl Crooks" in World's Finest Comics #159 (August 1966). In 1969, the Macfadden/Bartell Corporation published

4095-483: The VLA in the early 1990s revealed that there are patches of high radar reflection near the poles. Although ice was not the only possible cause of these reflective regions, astronomers thought it to be the most likely explanation. The presence of water ice was confirmed using MESSENGER images of craters at the north pole. The icy crater regions are estimated to contain about 10 –10  kg of ice, and may be covered by

4200-454: The antipode of the Caloris Basin is a large region of unusual, hilly terrain known as the "Weird Terrain". One hypothesis for its origin is that shock waves generated during the Caloris impact traveled around Mercury, converging at the basin's antipode (180 degrees away). The resulting high stresses fractured the surface. Alternatively, it has been suggested that this terrain formed as a result of

4305-472: The core , Mercury is much smaller and its inner regions are not as compressed. Therefore, for it to have such a high density, its core must be large and rich in iron. The radius of Mercury's core is estimated to be 2,020 ± 30 km (1,255 ± 19 mi), based on interior models constrained to be consistent with a moment of inertia factor of 0.346 ± 0.014 . Hence, Mercury's core occupies about 57% of its volume; for Earth this proportion

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4410-488: The solar wind . A third hypothesis proposes that the solar nebula caused drag on the particles from which Mercury was accreting , which meant that lighter particles were lost from the accreting material and not gathered by Mercury. Each hypothesis predicts a different surface composition, and two space missions have been tasked with making observations of this composition. The first MESSENGER , which ended in 2015, found higher-than-expected potassium and sulfur levels on

4515-403: The 1980s–1990s, and are thought to result primarily from the vaporization of surface rock struck by micrometeorite impacts including presently from Comet Encke . In 2008, magnesium was discovered by MESSENGER . Studies indicate that, at times, sodium emissions are localized at points that correspond to the planet's magnetic poles. This would indicate an interaction between the magnetosphere and

4620-428: The Caloris Basin was so powerful that it caused lava eruptions and left a concentric mountainous ring ~2 km (1.2 mi) tall surrounding the impact crater . The floor of the Caloris Basin is filled by a geologically distinct flat plain, broken up by ridges and fractures in a roughly polygonal pattern. It is not clear whether they were volcanic lava flows induced by the impact or a large sheet of impact melt. At

4725-512: The Greek Hermes, because it moves across the sky faster than any other planet, though some associated the planet with Apollo instead, as detailed by Pliny the Elder . The astronomical symbol for Mercury is a stylized version of Hermes' caduceus ; a Christian cross was added in the 16th century: [REDACTED] . Mercury is one of four terrestrial planets in the Solar System , which means it

4830-500: The Martian Catacombs" (Summer 1949); " Enchantress of Venus " (Fall 1949), once published as "City of the Lost Ones"; and "Black Amazon of Mars" (March 1951). The first and last stories were expanded into short novels: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" as The Secret of Sinharat and "Black Amazon of Mars" as People of the Talisman . The expanded versions were first published in 1964 as an Ace Double paperback, and again in 1982 under

4935-548: The Mercurian Twilight Belt, surviving by hunting rock-lizards. Before Stark was fully grown, another group of human miners exterminated his tribe, captured Stark and imprisoned him in a cage. They would ultimately have killed him if he had not been rescued by the police official Simon Ashton, who raised Stark to adulthood. The stories of the adult Stark are fast-paced adventures, but Brackett manages to insert more pathos than most authors. Because of his background, Stark

5040-442: The Moon, the surface of Mercury has likely incurred the effects of space weathering processes, including solar wind and micrometeorite impacts. There are two geologically distinct plains regions on Mercury. Gently rolling, hilly plains in the regions between craters are Mercury's oldest visible surfaces, predating the heavily cratered terrain. These inter-crater plains appear to have obliterated many earlier craters, and show

5145-520: The Moon. One of the most unusual craters is Apollodorus , or "the Spider", which hosts a series of radiating troughs extending outwards from its impact site. Craters on Mercury range in diameter from small bowl-shaped cavities to multi-ringed impact basins hundreds of kilometers across. They appear in all states of degradation, from relatively fresh rayed craters to highly degraded crater remnants. Mercurian craters differ subtly from lunar craters in that

5250-428: The Star Kings , originally intended for Harlan Ellison 's The Last Dangerous Visions , would not appear in print until 2005. It has been speculated that when Brackett temporarily abandoned science fiction for screenwriting in the early 1960s, Hamilton did an uncredited revision and expansion of two early Brackett stories, "Black Amazon of Mars" and "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" — revised texts were published as

5355-400: The Sun at its brightest makes these two points the hottest places on Mercury. Maximum temperature occurs when the Sun is at an angle of about 25 degrees past noon due to diurnal temperature lag , at 0.4 Mercury days and 0.8 Mercury years past sunrise. Conversely, there are two other points on the equator, 90 degrees of longitude apart from the first ones, where the Sun passes overhead only when

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5460-442: The Sun's apparent motion ceases; closer to perihelion, Mercury's angular orbital velocity then exceeds the angular rotational velocity. Thus, to a hypothetical observer on Mercury, the Sun appears to move in a retrograde direction. Four Earth days after perihelion, the Sun's normal apparent motion resumes. A similar effect would have occurred if Mercury had been in synchronous rotation: the alternating gain and loss of rotation over

5565-445: The Sun) on Mercury last exactly two Mercury years, or about 176 Earth days. Mercury's orbit is inclined by 7 degrees to the plane of Earth's orbit (the ecliptic ), the largest of all eight known solar planets. As a result, transits of Mercury across the face of the Sun can only occur when the planet is crossing the plane of the ecliptic at the time it lies between Earth and the Sun, which

5670-541: The Sun, collide with Venus, be ejected from the Solar System, or even disrupt the rest of the inner Solar System. In 1859, the French mathematician and astronomer Urbain Le Verrier reported that the slow precession of Mercury's orbit around the Sun could not be completely explained by Newtonian mechanics and perturbations by the known planets. He suggested, among possible explanations, that another planet (or perhaps instead

5775-422: The Sun. This varying distance to the Sun leads to Mercury's surface being flexed by tidal bulges raised by the Sun that are about 17 times stronger than the Moon's on Earth. Combined with a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance of the planet's rotation around its axis, it also results in complex variations of the surface temperature. The resonance makes a single solar day (the length between two meridian transits of

5880-463: The area blanketed by their ejecta is much smaller, a consequence of Mercury's stronger surface gravity. According to International Astronomical Union rules, each new crater must be named after an artist who was famous for more than fifty years, and dead for more than three years, before the date the crater is named. The largest known crater is Caloris Planitia , or Caloris Basin, with a diameter of 1,550 km (960 mi). The impact that created

5985-410: The axis of the aforementioned dipole) to always point at the center. However, with noticeable eccentricity, like that of Mercury's orbit, the tidal force has a maximum at perihelion and therefore stabilizes resonances, like 3:2, ensuring that the planet points its axis of least inertia roughly at the Sun when passing through perihelion. The original reason astronomers thought it was synchronously locked

6090-433: The convergence of ejecta at this basin's antipode. Overall, 46 impact basins have been identified. A notable basin is the 400 km (250 mi)-wide, multi-ring Tolstoj Basin that has an ejecta blanket extending up to 500 km (310 mi) from its rim and a floor that has been filled by smooth plains materials. Beethoven Basin has a similar-sized ejecta blanket and a 625 km (388 mi)-diameter rim. Like

6195-438: The craters. Above the planet's surface is an extremely tenuous exosphere and a faint magnetic field that is strong enough to deflect solar winds . Mercury has no natural satellite . As of the early 2020s, many broad details of Mercury's geological history are still under investigation or pending data from space probes. Like other planets in the Solar System, Mercury was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Its mantle

6300-500: The crust are high in carbon, most likely in the form of graphite. Names for features on Mercury come from a variety of sources and are set according to the IAU planetary nomenclature system. Names coming from people are limited to the deceased. Craters are named for artists, musicians, painters, and authors who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field. Ridges, or dorsa, are named for scientists who have contributed to

6405-473: The data is needed. Mercury's surface is similar in appearance to that of the Moon, showing extensive mare -like plains and heavy cratering, indicating that it has been geologically inactive for billions of years. It is more heterogeneous than the surface of Mars or the Moon, both of which contain significant stretches of similar geology, such as maria and plateaus. Albedo features are areas of markedly different reflectivity, which include impact craters,

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6510-438: The early 20th century, Albert Einstein 's general theory of relativity provided the explanation for the observed precession, by formalizing gravitation as being mediated by the curvature of spacetime. The effect is small: just 42.980 ± 0.001 arcseconds per century (or 0.43 arcsecond per year, or 0.1035 arcsecond per orbital period) for Mercury; it therefore requires a little over 12.5 million orbits, or 3 million years, for

6615-408: The effect of gravitational compression were to be factored out from both planets, the materials of which Mercury is made would be denser than those of Earth, with an uncompressed density of 5.3 g/cm versus Earth's 4.4 g/cm . Mercury's density can be used to infer details of its inner structure. Although Earth's high density results appreciably from gravitational compression, particularly at

6720-404: The effects of the eccentricity, showing Mercury's orbit overlaid with a circular orbit having the same semi-major axis . Mercury's higher velocity when it is near perihelion is clear from the greater distance it covers in each 5-day interval. In the diagram, the varying distance of Mercury to the Sun is represented by the size of the planet, which is inversely proportional to Mercury's distance from

6825-427: The equatorial subsolar point is located at latitude 0°W or 180°W, and it climbs to a temperature of about 700 K . During aphelion , this occurs at 90° or 270°W and reaches only 550 K . On the dark side of the planet, temperatures average 110 K . The intensity of sunlight on Mercury's surface ranges between 4.59 and 10.61 times the solar constant (1,370 W·m ). Although daylight temperatures at

6930-420: The features has suggested a total shrinkage of Mercury's radius in the range of ~1–7 km (0.62–4.35 mi). Most activity along the major thrust systems probably ended about 3.6–3.7 billion years ago. Small-scale thrust fault scarps have been found, tens of meters in height and with lengths in the range of a few kilometers, that appear to be less than 50 million years old, indicating that compression of

7035-490: The first Jules Verne Prize as the best science fiction story of the year (this was the first science fiction prize awarded by the votes of fans, a precursor of the later Hugo Awards ). In the later 1930s, in response to the economic strictures of the Great Depression , he also wrote detective and crime stories. Always prolific in stereotypical pulp magazine fashion, Hamilton sometimes saw four or five of his stories appear in

7140-526: The first hardcover compilations of what would eventually come to be known as the science fiction genre, The Horror on The Asteroid and Other Tales of Planetary Horror (1936). The book comprises the following stories: "The Horror on the Asteroid", "The Accursed Galaxy", "The Man Who Saw Everything" ("The Man With the X-Ray Eyes"), "The Earth-Brain", "The Monster-God of Mamurth", and " The Man Who Evolved ". Through

7245-531: The first, The Star Kings , is a reworking of The Prisoner of Zenda while Return to the Stars is a fix-up of four stories: "Kingdoms of the Stars", "The Shores of Infinity", "The Broken Stars" and "The Horror from the Magellanic". A crossover between this universe and Brackett's, "Stark and the Star Kings", was released in 2005, having originally been submitted to The Last Dangerous Visions . Two further stories in

7350-516: The horizon. By comparison, the angular size of the Sun as seen from Mercury ranges from 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 to 2 degrees across. At certain points on Mercury's surface, an observer would be able to see the Sun peek up a little more than two-thirds of the way over the horizon, then reverse and set before rising again, all within the same Mercurian day . This is because approximately four Earth days before perihelion, Mercury's angular orbital velocity equals its angular rotational velocity so that

7455-429: The interior and consequent surface geological activity continue to the present. There is evidence for pyroclastic flows on Mercury from low-profile shield volcanoes . Fifty-one pyroclastic deposits have been identified, where 90% of them are found within impact craters. A study of the degradation state of the impact craters that host pyroclastic deposits suggests that pyroclastic activity occurred on Mercury over

7560-428: The late 1920s and early 1930s Hamilton wrote for all of the science fiction pulp magazines then publishing, and contributed horror and thriller stories to various other magazines as well. He was very popular as an author of space opera , a subgenre he created along with E.E. "Doc" Smith , and which earned him nicknames like “The World Wrecker”. His story "The Island of Unreason" ( Wonder Stories , May 1933) won

7665-581: The novellas People of the Talisman and The Secret of Sinharat (1964). Edmond Hamilton died in February 1977 in Lancaster, California , of complications following kidney surgery. In the year before his death, Toei Animation had launched production of an anime adaptation of his Captain Future novels and Tsuburaya Productions adapted Star Wolf into a tokusatsu series; both series were aired on Japanese television in 1978. The Captain Future adaptation

7770-505: The orbital eccentricity of Mercury varies chaotically from nearly zero (circular) to more than 0.45 over millions of years due to perturbations from the other planets. This was thought to explain Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance (rather than the more usual 1:1), because this state is more likely to arise during a period of high eccentricity. However, accurate modeling based on a realistic model of tidal response has demonstrated that Mercury

7875-678: The original crust and mantle, leaving the core behind as a relatively major component. A similar process, known as the giant impact hypothesis , has been proposed to explain the formation of Earth's Moon. Alternatively, Mercury may have formed from the solar nebula before the Sun's energy output had stabilized. It would initially have had twice its present mass, but as the protosun contracted, temperatures near Mercury could have been between 2,500 and 3,500 K and possibly even as high as 10,000 K. Much of Mercury's surface rock could have been vaporized at such temperatures, forming an atmosphere of "rock vapor" that could have been carried away by

7980-407: The permanently shadowed polar craters. The detection of high amounts of water-related ions like O , OH , and H 3 O was a surprise. Because of the quantities of these ions that were detected in Mercury's space environment, scientists surmise that these molecules were blasted from the surface or exosphere by the solar wind. Sodium, potassium, and calcium were discovered in the atmosphere during

8085-528: The planet is at aphelion in alternate years, when the apparent motion of the Sun in Mercury's sky is relatively rapid. These points, which are the ones on the equator where the apparent retrograde motion of the Sun happens when it is crossing the horizon as described in the preceding paragraph, receive much less solar heat than the first ones described above. Mercury attains an inferior conjunction (nearest approach to Earth) every 116 Earth days on average, but this interval can range from 105 days to 129 days due to

8190-571: The planet's eccentric orbit. Mercury can come as near as 82,200,000 km (0.549 astronomical units; 51.1 million miles) to Earth, and that is slowly declining: The next approach to within 82,100,000 km (51 million mi) is in 2679, and to within 82,000,000 km (51 million mi) in 4487, but it will not be closer to Earth than 80,000,000 km (50 million mi) until 28,622. Its period of retrograde motion as seen from Earth can vary from 8 to 15 days on either side of an inferior conjunction. This large range arises from

8295-454: The planet's high orbital eccentricity would serve to keep part of the core in the liquid state necessary for this dynamo effect. Mercury's magnetic field is strong enough to deflect the solar wind around the planet, creating a magnetosphere. The planet's magnetosphere, though small enough to fit within Earth, is strong enough to trap solar wind plasma . This contributes to the space weathering of

8400-441: The planet's high orbital eccentricity. Essentially, because Mercury is closest to the Sun, when taking an average over time, Mercury is most often the closest planet to the Earth, and—in that measure—it is the closest planet to each of the other planets in the Solar System. The longitude convention for Mercury puts the zero of longitude at one of the two hottest points on the surface, as described above. However, when this area

8505-442: The planet's surface. According to NASA, Mercury is not a suitable planet for Earth-like life. It has a surface boundary exosphere instead of a layered atmosphere, extreme temperatures, and high solar radiation. It is unlikely that any living beings can withstand those conditions. Some parts of the subsurface of Mercury may have been habitable , and perhaps life forms , albeit likely primitive microorganisms , may have existed on

8610-504: The planet's surface. Observations taken by the Mariner 10 spacecraft detected this low energy plasma in the magnetosphere of the planet's nightside. Bursts of energetic particles in the planet's magnetotail indicate a dynamic quality to the planet's magnetosphere. During its second flyby of the planet on October 6, 2008, MESSENGER discovered that Mercury's magnetic field can be extremely "leaky". The spacecraft encountered magnetic "tornadoes"—twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting

8715-482: The planet. Despite its small size and slow 59-day-long rotation, Mercury has a significant, and apparently global, magnetic field . According to measurements taken by Mariner 10 , it is about 1.1% the strength of Earth's . The magnetic-field strength at Mercury's equator is about 300 nT . Like that of Earth, Mercury's magnetic field is dipolar and nearly aligned with the planet's spin axis (10° dipolar tilt, compared to 11° for Earth). Measurements from both

8820-439: The planetary magnetic field to interplanetary space—that were up to 800 km wide or a third of the radius of the planet. These twisted magnetic flux tubes, technically known as flux transfer events , form open windows in the planet's magnetic shield through which the solar wind may enter and directly impact Mercury's surface via magnetic reconnection . This also occurs in Earth's magnetic field. The MESSENGER observations showed

8925-458: The reconnection rate was ten times higher at Mercury, but its proximity to the Sun only accounts for about a third of the reconnection rate observed by MESSENGER . Mercury has the most eccentric orbit of all the planets in the Solar System; its eccentricity is 0.21 with its distance from the Sun ranging from 46,000,000 to 70,000,000 km (29,000,000 to 43,000,000 mi). It takes 87.969 Earth days to complete an orbit. The diagram illustrates

9030-450: The resulting ejecta, and ray systems . Larger albedo features correspond to higher reflectivity plains. Mercury has " wrinkle-ridges " (dorsa), Moon-like highlands , mountains (montes), plains (planitiae), escarpments (rupes), and valleys ( valles ). The planet's mantle is chemically heterogeneous, suggesting the planet went through a magma ocean phase early in its history. Crystallization of minerals and convective overturn resulted in

9135-420: The romantic and fantastic elements of his earlier fiction to create some unsentimental and realistic stories, such as "What's It Like Out There?" ( Thrilling Wonder Stories , December 1952), his single most frequently-reprinted and anthologized work. Though Hamilton and Leigh Brackett worked side by side for a quarter-century, they rarely shared the task of authorship; their single formal collaboration, Stark and

9240-445: The same face directed towards the Sun, in the same way that the same side of the Moon always faces Earth. Radar observations in 1965 proved that the planet has a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, rotating three times for every two revolutions around the Sun. The eccentricity of Mercury's orbit makes this resonance stable—at perihelion, when the solar tide is strongest, the Sun is nearly stationary in Mercury's sky. The 3:2 resonant tidal locking

9345-756: The smooth plains of Mercury formed significantly later than the Caloris basin, as evidenced by appreciably smaller crater densities than on the Caloris ejecta blanket. An unusual feature of Mercury's surface is the numerous compression folds, or rupes , that crisscross the plains. These exist on the Moon, but are much more prominent on Mercury. As Mercury's interior cooled, it contracted and its surface began to deform, creating wrinkle ridges and lobate scarps associated with thrust faults . The scarps can reach lengths of 1,000 km (620 mi) and heights of 3 km (1.9 mi). These compressional features can be seen on top of other features, such as craters and smooth plains, indicating they are more recent. Mapping of

9450-452: The solar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space. The radioactive decay of elements within Mercury's crust is another source of helium, as well as sodium and potassium. Water vapor is present, released by a combination of processes such as comets striking its surface, sputtering creating water out of hydrogen from the solar wind and oxygen from rock, and sublimation from reservoirs of water ice in

9555-514: The study of Mercury. Depressions or fossae are named for works of architecture. Montes are named for the word "hot" in a variety of languages. Plains or planitiae are named for Mercury in various languages. Escarpments or rupēs are named for ships of scientific expeditions. Valleys or valles are named for abandoned cities, towns, or settlements of antiquity. Mercury was heavily bombarded by comets and asteroids during and shortly following its formation 4.6 billion years ago, as well as during

9660-445: The surface of Mercury are generally extremely high, observations strongly suggest that ice (frozen water) exists on Mercury. The floors of deep craters at the poles are never exposed to direct sunlight, and temperatures there remain below 102 K, far lower than the global average. This creates a cold trap where ice can accumulate. Water ice strongly reflects radar , and observations by the 70-meter Goldstone Solar System Radar and

9765-406: The surface, suggesting that the giant impact hypothesis and vaporization of the crust and mantle did not occur because said potassium and sulfur would have been driven off by the extreme heat of these events. BepiColombo , which will arrive at Mercury in 2025, will make observations to test these hypotheses. The findings so far would seem to favor the third hypothesis; however, further analysis of

9870-456: The time until the next sunrise after another 88 Earth days. Combined with its high orbital eccentricity , the planet's surface has widely varying sunlight intensity and temperature, with the equatorial regions ranging from −170 °C (−270 °F) at night to 420 °C (790 °F) during sunlight. Due to the very small axial tilt , the planet's poles are permanently shadowed . This strongly suggests that water ice could be present in

9975-407: The title Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars . The internal chronology of the stories is different from the publishing order; in "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" Stark is on Mars, having fled capture on Venus; "Black Amazon of Mars" takes place soon after, but in an unexplored and barbaric area close to the north pole of Mars; and in "Enchantress of Venus", Stark has returned from Mars to Venus to look for

10080-475: The westerly direction on Mercury. The two hottest places on the equator are therefore at longitudes 0° W and 180° W, and the coolest points on the equator are at longitudes 90° W and 270° W. However, the MESSENGER project uses an east-positive convention. For many years it was thought that Mercury was synchronously tidally locked with the Sun, rotating once for each orbit and always keeping

10185-482: Was an evening star or a morning star. By about 350 BC, the ancient Greeks had realized the two stars were one. They knew the planet as Στίλβων Stilbōn , meaning "twinkling", and Ἑρμής Hermēs , for its fleeting motion, a name that is retained in modern Greek ( Ερμής Ermis ). The Romans named the planet after the swift-footed Roman messenger god, Mercury (Latin Mercurius ), whom they equated with

10290-605: Was associated with an extravagant, romantic, high-adventure style of science fiction, perhaps best represented by his 1947 novel The Star Kings. In 1942 Hamilton began writing for DC Comics , specializing in stories for their characters Superman and Batman . His first comics story was "Bandits in Toyland" in Batman #11 (June–July 1942). He wrote the short-lived science fiction series Chris KL-99 in Strange Adventures , which

10395-520: Was by Manly Wade Wellman . The main series was followed by a set of seven novelettes from 1950–1951: "The Return of Captain Future", "Children of the Sun", "The Harpers of Titan", "Pardon my Iron Nerves", "Moon of the Unforgotten", "Earthmen No More" and "Birthplace of Creation". A space opera sequence based on the seminal "Crashing Suns". With the exception of "The Sun People", the stories were assembled as Crashing Suns in 1965. A space opera sequence:

10500-464: Was captured into the 3:2 spin-orbit state at a very early stage of its history, within 20 (more likely, 10) million years after its formation. Numerical simulations show that a future secular orbital resonant interaction with the perihelion of Jupiter may cause the eccentricity of Mercury's orbit to increase to the point where there is a 1% chance that the orbit will be destabilized in the next five billion years. If this happens, Mercury may fall into

10605-520: Was ever found. The observed perihelion precession of Mercury is 5,600 arcseconds (1.5556°) per century relative to Earth, or 574.10 ± 0.65 arcseconds per century relative to the inertial ICRF . Newtonian mechanics, taking into account all the effects from the other planets and including 0.0254 arcseconds per century due to the oblateness of the Sun, predicts a precession of 5,557 arcseconds (1.5436°) per century relative to Earth, or 531.63 ± 0.69 arcseconds per century relative to ICRF. In

10710-472: Was first visited, by Mariner 10 , this zero meridian was in darkness, so it was impossible to select a feature on the surface to define the exact position of the meridian. Therefore, a small crater further west was chosen, called Hun Kal , which provides the exact reference point for measuring longitude. The center of Hun Kal defines the 20° west meridian. A 1970 International Astronomical Union resolution suggests that longitudes be measured positively in

10815-914: Was later exported to Europe, winning Hamilton a new and different fan base than the one that had acclaimed him half a century before, notably in France, Italy and Germany. Joint interviews of Brackett and Hamilton by Dave Truesdale were published in Tangent (Summer 1976), and by Darrell Schweitzer in Amazing Stories (January 1978),  — the latter published several months after Hamilton's death, but conducted "much earlier", Truesdale attributes to Schweitzer. On July 18, 2009, Kinsman, Ohio, "celebrat[ed] Edmond Hamilton Day, honoring 'The Dean of Science Fiction' and Kinsman resident". Volumes #14 ( Worlds to Come , 1943) and #17 ( Days of Creation , 1944) were written by Joseph Samachson while #20, The Solar Invasion (1946)

10920-619: Was loosely based on Captain Future. He and artist Sheldon Moldoff created Batwoman in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956). Hamilton co-created Space Ranger in Showcase #15 (July–Aug. 1958) with Gardner Fox and Bob Brown . He also wrote the well-regarded three-part story "The Last Days of Superman" in Superman #156 (Oct 1962). Hamilton was also among the first regular writers for Legion of Super-Heroes , where he created Timber Wolf ,

11025-460: Was that, whenever Mercury was best placed for observation, it was always nearly at the same point in its 3:2 resonance, hence showing the same face. This is because, coincidentally, Mercury's rotation period is almost exactly half of its synodic period with respect to Earth. Due to Mercury's 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, a solar day lasts about 176 Earth days. A sidereal day (the period of rotation) lasts about 58.7 Earth days. Simulations indicate that

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