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Question on Mercury

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Mon, 2010-10-11 21:52

Sepherim

Question on Mercury

My players have just arrived at Mercury as they are in a mission there (I'll post the whole adventure written once they're done with it and I worked it out). Sunward says that activity on the surface can only take place during the two hours that take place right before the sun shows over the horizon or after it sets, so I'm working on finding out how long players have to stay in their current habitat before leaving it. So I went to the wiki to see how long Mercury's days are, but I must admit it left me more puzzled and ignorant than I was before checking due to the planets strange rotation/translation relationship. So, to make the question simple, how long does the day last? And the night? Wiki mentions double days and other strange elements, and my astronomical knowledge doesn't go as far as that so, does anyone know? :)

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Mon, 2010-10-11 22:38

fellowhoodlum fellowhoodlum's picture

Re: Question on Mercury

The Wiki mentions Mercury's Solar day (i.e., sunrise to sunrise) is approx. 176 Earth days. So assumming the day/night division is the same, it's 88 days of burning fiery death and 88 days of freezing cold death. :)

Tue, 2010-10-12 12:47

puke

Re: Question on Mercury

things could be underground to survive the 88 days between your two hours. but i'd think you have a pretty long dawn/dusk time that should be relatively safe. you could also have massive vehicles on treads or rails that hug the twilight zones. they would only need to go about 1.16km/h at the equator. they could even have solar collectors following a hundred klicks behind (or ahead) of them to cut down on transmission loss. or stationary... stations could ring the planet, which might be more practical. Haven't read sunward yet, maybe thats accounted for in there.

Tue, 2010-10-12 15:29

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Question on Mercury

Indeed, the 'day' is about six months, the majority of which you'll be burning quietly. The night is also about six months - during which you will be subjected to temperatures colder than space (Aremanentousnos do NOT respond about how space has no temperature. Some people write just for rhetoric :P ) Most habitats will either be at the poles, underground, in orbit, or moving. Cannon, for instance, is on giant tracks, so will always stay on that horizon. If the caterpillar tracks ever break down, they've got about two hours to fix them, which makes for a pretty exciting adventure all in itself.