Mercury has a tail!

[Radar]

Interesting story about Mercury on Discovery News.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/28/mercury-tail.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/28/gallery/mercury-tail-540x540.jpg


One Long Tail
An image of Mercury's long tail, as captured in a 7 degree image of space. Seven degrees is a bit more than the arc of sky covered by the knuckles of a closed fist, when held up to the sky at arm's length. So this is an impressively long tail. Mercury itself is blocked out by a large black dot because it's too bright. If Mercury were shown to scale it would be smaller than one pixel.


Mercury is smaller than one pixel, lol.

Ray

[timthelder]

Amazing what's found when a different perspective is taken on it. In a way it seems very plausible considering the surface temperature.

I hope they don't change the planet definition again...I can hear it now,
"To be considered a planet, a heavenly body must not have a tail." LOL.

[Tenacious Del]

is the sun the backdrop in that photo? because that tail would have to be really bright if the sun is the backdrop in that photo. pretty awesome though. Tim has a point to. Since when did planets have tails? Mercury may fit with being more like a comet now.

Del