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OF CONTENTS: Classical Observations of Mercury The Planet Vulcan Einstein and Relativity Applying Relativity to Mercury's Orbit Further Applications of Relativity Bibliography |
The Planet Mercury was likely the last of the original five planets discovered by humanity in ancient times. While Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are all fairly large and bright in the sky, Mercury is small and hard to pick out from the Sun's brightness. In the era of Classical Physics when all the orbits of the other planets had been predicted to incredible precision Mercury still had an unusually large uncertainty. The answer to the problem of Mercury's behavior would have to wait until the arrival of Relativistic Physics and the idea that space itself could be bent. Image source: http://www.nasa.gov/content/sunlit-side-of-the-planet-mercury |