Hey People,
Here is some of Jan Lamprecht's stuff from the book Hollow Planets on
Mercury. The " ice " perceived lying around the polar caps and the
brightness could be a matter of radiations, not in the visible band,
pouring
out of the inner part of the planet through the polar openings and
reflecting the radar right back. How 'bout that!
The puranas of India tell of the ancient king named Puru who was from
Mercury, and who married into the Lunar dynasty and produced a great
king in
that dynasty names Yayati.
From Jan's web site-
Chapter 04. The Cold Winds of Mercury
We know less about Mercury than about any other planet except Pluto.
One of the big surprises of the space program was the discovery that
Mercury
had a magnetic field. Various theories have been advanced but all of
them
are problematic.
Mercury's rotation has always been a mystery to astronomers. For
almost a
century the finest astronomers in the world agreed that Mercury kept
the
same face pointed to the Sun and rotated about its axis in 88 days.
Since
Mercury has no atmosphere and is heavily cratered one would expect it
to be
relatively easy to determine this planet's rotation period since
features on
its surface are always visible. And yet, it was only in 1965 when
radar was
used that Mercury's actual axial rotation was determined to be 58.6
days.
This caught everyone by surprise. How is it possible that Mercury's
rotation
could be such a mystery? Scientists keep likening Mercury to the Moon
with
its craters and its dormant surface. Determining Mercury's rotation
period
should be as simple as picking a single bright or dark spot and
monitoring
it for a period of time. But in almost a century not a single
astronomer
came even close to the real figure. Why?
Mercury is not quite as dead a world as it appears to be. NASA
satellite
photos show it to look almost exactly like the Moon, but the reports
of
astronomers, professional and amateur alike tell a whole different
story.
Mercury's surface is constantly changing. In the 1920's the great
astronomer
Antoniadi, made a convincing case that Mercury not only had an
atmosphere
but clouds also which were affecting the visibility of its surface.
Many
astronomers have commented over the years at the surprisingly fast
changes
which take place on the planet's surface. No one has ever explained
this.
A bigger surprise occurred in the early 1990's when radar now picked
up
something new. Ice at its polar caps! This was surprising because the
NASA
Mariner photos from 1974 show no ice. So scientists concluded that
the ice
lay under a thin layer of dust, and had been there for billions of
years.
Nice theory that, except it flies in the face of drawings done by many
astronomers over the years which show Mercury's surface changing in
brightness. Sometimes Mercury's polar caps become exceptionally dark
to the
point of disappearing from view completely. At other times these same
polar
regions light up and become the brightest part of the planet. Richard
Baum,
(Director of the Mercury & Venus sections of the British Astronomical
Association), has often commented on this. In the 1990's he wrote of
instances in the past where astronomers drew very obvious ice caps on
Mercury which then waxed and waned as the planet rotated. Is the ice
at the
poles really billions of years old or are there dust-storms and ice-
falls
taking place all the time on Mercury? Richard Baum openly tells other
astronomers to study Mercury because it is not as dead a world as the
textbooks would have us believe.
Observations of Mercury during its transits across the face of the
Sun add
to the picture of a temporary atmosphere which comes and goes.
Indeed, as
one studies Mercury's atmospheric phenomenon one realises that its
atmosphere must indeed be temporary. Could Mercury be hollow? Could
it be
that air leaks out of the planet's polar regions by way of Polar
Holes?
Mercury's polar regions are the most variable areas of all changing
from
being very bright to being very dark. Could this be because of dust-
storms
caused by air coming out of the planet which then causes snow-falls?
And
what then? Does the air leak back into the planet and remain there?
Does an
Inner Mercury undergo various weather phenomenon which cause air to be
expelled on to the outer surface and which later returns inside?
The last thing one expects is water in an atmosphere on Mercury, and
yet,
the evidence suggests that moisture-laden air is expelled from inside
Mercury on to its outer surface and this may be the cause of all the
strange
weather phenomenon seen on that planet.
Does Mercury have Polar Holes in its polar regions? The nature of the
weather phenomenon leads me to believe this is so. Why then do the
Mariner
photographs show us nothing? Or is it that NASA actually edits these
photographs? I would strongly urge astronomers to look into the issue
of
discrepancies between NASA's photographs of the polar regions of
Mercury and
the subsequent sightings dating back more than a century showing the
polar
regions of that planet waxing and waning. Recent drawings (1997)
published
in the British Astronomical Association Journal show the polar
regions of
Mercury to be the brightest part of the planet. Is that because a
polar ice
cap is sitting there in full view for all to see?
Hollow Planets:
