Mercury orbit has high eccentricity,
with the planet's distance from the SunAmong
the major planets only Pluto has a more
eccentric orbit. However, because of the
smallness of Mercury's orbit, all of the
planets except the Earth and Venus have
a larger spread between perihelion and aphelion
(Mars' is 42.6 Gm to Mercury's 23.8 Gm,
for example); there are even several outer
planet satellites that beat Mercury's spread:
Saturn's S/2004 S 18 (with 30.8 Gm) and
Neptune's S/2003 N 1 and S/2002 N 4 (42.0
and 47.9 Gm, respectively). |
|
