This little tidbit of editorial wisdom in this week's issue of The Reminder, our local free community newspaper:
The U.S. space program should not neglect the planet Mercury. Actually, the innermost planet should have a higher priority than Mars for future exploration and colonization. Mercury has polar ice and is not to hot at high latitudes. It also has far better energy sources than Mars. At its distance from the sun, solar energy is about twenty times greater than on Mars. Moreover, Mercury is the best source of Helium-3 for future fusion. This may be vital after fossil fuels are depleted on Earth.
First a :roll: :roll: :roll: salute to the man who wrote this in the first place. Mercury may have a tiny bit of polar ice, but Mars has comparatively enormous amounts. Mars is never hot, wheras "not too hot" on Mercury is around 400 degrees. Mars doesn't suffer from 600-degrees centigrade temperature changes between night and day. Mercury's nonexistant Sodium/Helium atmosphere doesn't do much for micrometeroid impacts, or stopping solar radiation. As for Helium-3, the Moon is far closer.
Why not just build Nitrogen collectors on Venus, under-ice cities on Europa, and automated Methane refineries on Pluto?

Methane refineries? We don't need those. Ever been to a cow farm? theres your refineries.

Does mercury have anything worthwile to go for other than interesting geological features?

Oh and i was wondering while on the subject, is there a significant tidal buldge on the side facing the sun or have we not bee able to take pictures of that yet?

Some planetologist can tell me if I am wrong here, but actually, resource wise, Mercury is suppose to be a great source of all kinds of metals. It's like a giant BB. (There is some thought around that Mercury suffered a huge impact that blew off it's crust or something). It is te densest planet in the solar system, I think, pointing to a lot of heavy metals. Proabbly the crust has a much higher percentage than ours does, but I haven't seen any numbers to back that up.

Aybody know if this is right or not?

All metals? I've just heard that it has a huge iron core that is relatively larger than any other terrestrial planet.

It is, however, not the densest. Earth is, due to gravitational compression.

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Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Actually, the most methane comes from trash dumps, believe it or not.

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

With a density of 5.43 g/cc, Mercury is probably about as metal rich as Earth (d = 5.52).

Never knew that. See! You do lean something new every day!!! :-D

Speaking of methane, there are large quantities of it trapped as methane ice in the mud of the deep ocean. Weird worms have been recently discovered living on nodules of this methane ice. According to an article in this month's Discover magazine, there is a whole bacterial biota in the deep ocean mud that produces methane as a waste product and may be responsible for the large quantities of methane ice found there. If a sufficient amount of this methane ice were released at once (as by a major sea quake in certain areas), it could throw the planet into a truly disastrous spell of global warming. In fact, there is some speculation that just such an event my have caused the great Permian extinction.

So the last thing we need to do is import methane from other planets. We already have more than enough right here to kill us all.

In case you didn't already have enough to worry about... :wink:

I'm not sure, but I think I remember something about Mercury and Earth being oddballs because of very strong magnetic fields compared to other planets. Obviously the metal content helps with this, but are there other planets like this? I can't remember and I'm a bit too lazy right now to look it up...

most methane from rubbish dumps? ever been to a sewerage treatment plant, no pretty, lots of methane. enough to collect and burn for constant electricity production.

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Man can't even create a simple worm, but can create gods by the dozen.

Even Beethoven had his critics..

e=mc2 ( energy=morning coffee x 2)

From APOD: Methane Earth

I'll skip the beans today :wink: :wink:

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What causes the methane production from the Southern Ocean? Penguins? Flatulent whales?

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"If lightspeed has something to do with speed.
how come things can move fast in the dark?"
-James Driscoll (Spaceman), kook, imbecile, idiot.

I think what the photo is showing in the southern ocean is a decreased rate of breakdown of methane in the atmosphere at lower temperatures. That could give rise to higher steady state levels, despite reduced production down there. Look at how low the levels are near the equator, where you'd expect high production from forests and swamps. It seems unlikely that the American south could actually be producing more methane than the rainforests of Brazil.

Lacking numbers to back this up, but a guesstmate says it is possible for the Americas to produce more methane, if only from the cows. That doesn't begin to get into the manure industry.

Think of how many millions of tons of the stuff cover the plains states. If you go to a farm, (of the industrial type) you are walking in it constantly. Multiply that by the acreage ranches take up it he US alone (to say nothing of Argentina and Brazil) and I could see the rainforest being far outstripped by industrial processes. After all, a rainforest has fewer bovines per square mile than Wisconsin, and decay in the woods is probably nowhere near as efficient at making and storing it as a cow's stomach.

But you are right about the temperature issue - a lower air temperature would make methane hang around some. Combine that with higher production from the fields of cattle in Argentina and Australia, and the mirror phenomenon in the North, and the picture makes a lot of sense, no?

Tell me if this makes no sense at all.

ops: ops: ops: I am so sorry.... ops: ops: ops:

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I don't know. I went looking for some numbers, but the whole methane/greenhouse thing gets so political so fast that its impossible for a non-expert to figure out which numbers are real, which are just plain guesses, and which owe their existence to someone's agenda.

Mostly from USC’s geology 150 notes:
•As of 1997, anthropogenic sources of methane (340 Tg/yr) predominate over natural sources (160 Tg/yr)

The top three natural sources are
* Wetlands (115) Tg/yr
* Termites (20)
* Ocean (10)

The top Anthropogenic sources are
* Coal mining, natural gas, petroleum industry (100) Tg/yr
* Enteric fermentation (belching) from cattle and other stock (85)
* Rice paddies (60)
* Landfills (40)

Since 97, the methane contribution of termites, and arctic tundra has been jiggered upward, and that of cows knocked down by some studies. -I’ve little idea whose numbers are good and whose are not.
So you might be right about cows, plus petroleum, vs swamps, or maybe not.
However, since AGN Fuel has offered, it’s probably best just to blame the Australians for all that methane down under. :wink:

Perhaps I'm out of the loop a bit. What happens to Methane in the atmosphere? Is it the CO2 that is generated by burning it that adds to the greenhouse effect?

Most of the sources cited above are shallow cycles. Cows eat plants that were alive shortly before they were eaten. What goes in comes out. Fossil fuels (including the ocean mud I would think) are the only deep cycle which might cause a problem if released en mass.

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

In part...

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Methane by itself is a very strong greenhouse gas.

Charlie - I think you are making a joke, but if its a serious comment, I think that is a bubble net. Certain whales blow rings of bubbles that act as a net to herd fish together. Then then swim up the middle with their mouth open. I actually saw this in Alaska, though not from above.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009