How will humans use mercury in the future?

Mars is the most popular candidate planet for immigration. Compared with Mars, can Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, provide more chances for human beings to survive?

On May 9, 20 16, Mercury passed between the sun and the earth again 10 years later. Mercury, located in the innermost part of the solar system, was once a mystery to the earth people, because it was very close to the sun and was often submerged by the fierce and dazzling sunlight, so it was difficult for us to observe it carefully.

But the arrival of the space age changed everything, especially the data sent back by the Messenger probe launched by NASA, which made us realize the true face of some mercury. Japan and the European Space Agency will jointly launch the third probe to visit Beibei Colombo in 20 17 to further study Mercury.

So, what potential does Mercury have to serve mankind? How will humans use it in the future? Before that, we must understand the basic characteristics of the planet closest to the sun.

This strange planet

It was not until the 65438+ 1960' s that it was determined that mercury only needed 88 earth days to go around the sun. 1 mercury day, that is, one day of mercury, is roughly equivalent to 59 earth days. People on earth can see the sun rising in the east every day, but the situation of mercury is different from that of the earth. Mercury people can't see the sunrise every day. Do you know why? That's because mercury is too close to the sun. It is the fastest planet in the solar system, and it takes only one day and night every three times (one revolution of the earth is one day and night). Therefore, if you stand at any point on the surface of Mercury, you need three "Mercury Days" (about 176 Earth Days) to see a sunrise. At the same time, every time Mercury rotates 3 times, it just revolves 2 times, so a day and night on Mercury is equal to two years on Mercury.

Mercury has many characteristics similar to the moon: a small windless planet, and its rock surface is covered with many uneven craters of different sizes. But there is another feature on the surface of Mercury-there is a special cliff terrain with a height difference of several kilometers, which is called wrinkle ridge. You can think of them as wrinkles on the skin of apples after they are dried. This kind of terrain can only be seen on mercury.

The gravity of mercury will surprise you. Although this planet is only a little bigger than the moon, its gravity is 1 times that of the moon. It is speculated that Mercury used to be a bigger planet, similar in size to the Earth, and its core was mainly composed of iron and rocky mantle. Later, due to the impact of other planets, the outer shell and most of the mantle of Mercury were knocked off, leaving only a very large inner core. Because of the high density of the only remaining core, its gravity is much greater than that of the moon.

If you can stand on mercury, you will see twice as much sun as you see from the earth. In addition, mercury has almost no atmosphere, so the solar radiation on mercury is very strong during the day. At noon, the ground temperature can reach 427℃, enough to melt people. At night, without the atmosphere to keep warm, the temperature at night will drop to near-173℃.

At this time, you may ask, the environment of mercury is far from the earth. Besides scientific exploration and some extreme space tourism activities, why go to Mercury? In fact, the position of water star may be one of the most strategic positions in the solar system.

Get rich resources

First of all, if we leave the earth to develop interstellar civilization, we will need a lot of energy and raw materials.

Due to its location advantage, Mercury receives a lot of sunlight, and the solar energy obtained within the range of 1 square meter on Mercury is equivalent to the solar energy obtained by 6 square meters on the earth. Ceres (a dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter), usually touted as one of the best candidate planets for obtaining resources, needs 60 square meters.

As for raw materials, it is proposed to mine from the earth, but this method will not only destroy the earth's environment, but also extract materials from the earth and send them to space, and the transportation cost is quite expensive. So from an economic point of view, it is more cost-effective to extract raw materials in space.

So, among the many planets in the solar system, which ones are suitable for mining raw materials? You may think of the moon first. Yes, according to our understanding of the moon, its surface does contain heavy metal elements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium and even titanium and aluminum. Of course, humans can use the moon, but the core of the moon is relatively small, and the deepest mining depth of mineral resources may be only 1400 km, which may be used up soon. In contrast, there are many raw materials like the moon in the mantle of Mercury, and the inner core is relatively large, which means that Mercury has greater potential for raw material development.

In addition, the large amount of solar energy received by Mercury can provide power for mining operations. After being packaged, the mineral resources mined by Mercury can be transported to other parts of the solar system by solar energy.

Build a space port

Imagine a solar sail, thin and strong, maybe made of aluminum on Mercury. When the sun shines on the solar sail, it will produce a thrust, which is the power needed for the solar sail to fly, and then drive the manned spacecraft to fly to other planets.

On Earth, an 800-meter-wide solar sail will get a light pressure of about 5 Newton, which is equivalent to the force generated by the ion thruster used by NASA's Dawn probe (the probe to Ceres). Obviously, the closer the solar sail is to the sun, the greater the thrust it gets. On Mercury, solar sails less than 400 meters in diameter can get the same thrust.

1984, Robert Forward, an American physicist and science fiction writer, proposed a propulsion system around Mercury in his novel. The propulsion system of Advance is a set of laser stations, with a total of *** 1000, each 30 kilometers wide. They convert the captured solar energy into a laser beam with a total power of about 1300 TW, which is equivalent to 1% of the total solar energy obtained by the earth, so as to propel the solar sails.

If you want to go to Neptune by solar sail, you can go to Mercury first, because Mercury is closest to the sun, so that the solar sail can get more thrust and acceleration, so that you can go to Wang Xingfei quickly. In this way, Mercury may one day become the "shipyard" of the solar system and the main port for refueling.

Besides turning mercury into a space port, can there be more miracles for mercury in the future? Can we turn it into another earth?

Advantages of Mercury's Earthization

If one day the earth can no longer survive, one of mankind's choices is to copy another "earth" in the solar system. At this time, we usually think of Mars. The orbit of Mars is similar to that of the Earth, with similar days, and there are also some necessary living substances, such as water and carbon. At present, Mars is the best choice in the solar system.

But if Mars is excluded, are there any other candidate planets? Scientists have also considered ceres and the moon. However, Mercury, another planet in the solar system, actually has some natural advantages, such as strong surface gravity. The earth's atmosphere is very thick, while the atmospheres of planets such as the moon, Ceres and Mercury are very thin, so if we want to transform them into another "earth", we must "import" the earth-like atmosphere to this planet. Compared with candidate planets such as Ceres and the Moon, Mercury has stronger surface gravity and can retain more "input" atmosphere, so it will be more like the Earth.

But mercury is so close to the sun, how can human beings live in such fierce sunshine? It has been calculated that if mercury turns into the daytime of the earth, it will receive at least 84% less sunlight. So people came up with a way to block out the strong sunlight with a huge deflection mirror-a sun visor about the size of Mercury itself.

The temperature difference between day and night on Mercury is nearly 600℃. With such a large temperature difference, you might think that human beings will never live on Mercury. However, through observation, scientists found that there are some circular mountains at the poles of Mercury, where the sun will never shine, and there may be ice in the dark shadow area-this is a miracle discovered by the Messenger detector, and the scale of ice is about 100 km wide. This kind of ice may be a necessity for future colonists, and human beings have the opportunity to create an artificial immigration environment by using polar ice and artificial insulation devices.

This article comes from the article of "The Mystery of Great Science and Technology * Science", No.8, 20 16. Readers are welcome to pay attention to the micro signal of our big technology: hdkj 1997.