Hobbies And Interests
Temperature and Atmospheric Conditions
When a planet is closer to the sun temperatures increase, which can bring about a number of atmospheric phenomena. The hotter a planet is, the more steam it will generate, which also leads to becoming a very dry planet with a thinner atmosphere. The gases found in the planet quickly escapes into space, and so does the heat that comes from the sun. For example, Mercury, the planet nearest to the sun, receives the sun's rays at approximately seven times stronger than what the Earth gets. Its very thin atmosphere results gives it an extremely high temperature during the day and an extremely low temperature at night.
Orbital and Rotational Periods
The sun's gravitational pull slows down a planet's rotation, which makes it have longer days. Inversely, the planet's revolution around the sun becomes faster. In the case of Mercury, the days are very long, but the years are very short. It takes about 58.5 Earth days to complete one Mercury day. Yet, it takes only 88 Earth days to complete one Mercury year. This is in conjunction with Kepler's Second Law stating that "The orbital speed of any one planet varies inversely with its distance from the sun." As the sun's force on the planet increases because they are closer to each other, the acceleration of the planet increases.
Heaviness
The formation of the sun pushed the lighter gas and dust out of the inner part of the Solar System, according to the Kids Astronomy website. It left the heavier elements nearer it, which means the closer planets are the heavier and rockier ones. The solar winds tend to blow away gaseous materials farther out. Unlike the large but gaseous planets such as Uranus and Jupiter, the planets nearer the sun including Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth are heavier and more dense. Also, a planet nearer the sun will affect the said planet's gravitational pull. Because of the change of distance of a planet to the sun, Newton's Laws of Motion and Law of Gravity states that "If the planet changes its distance from the sun as it orbits, the force of gravity between them must change."
Visibility
The sun appears visibly larger to a planet nearer to it. At the same time, when a planet becomes too close to the sun, its visibility from a specific point in space farther from the sun is also affected. For instance, in the case of Mercury's visibility from the Earth and other points in space where the Earth has telescopes that can document Mercury, the illumination of Mercury's disk usually have significant effects on the image from the telescopes. From 1974 to 1975, the spacecraft Mariner 10 was only able to map 45 percent of Mercury's surface because it was too close to the sun to be safely imaged, according to the Nine Planets website.