First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"The experiments that we will do with the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] have been done billions of times by cosmic rays hitting the earth.... They're being done continuously by cosmic rays hitting our astronomical bodies, like the moon, the sun, like Jupiter and so on and so forth. And the earth's still here, the sun's still here, the moon's still here. LHC collisions are not going to destroy the planet."
"We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun]...And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth."
"...using MESSENGER's x-ray spectrometer [it is] found that Mercury's surface has much more sulfur than that of any other rocky planet in the solar system."
"...that the hollows could form when volatile materials such as sulfur on the surface are exposed to the harsh solar wind—actually a stream of charged particles from the sun. Since the tiny planet has no atmosphere, these particles can hit the surface directly, vaporizing volatile minerals. Or the close sun's intense heat could "boil" the minerals away."
"The old thinking was, Oh, Mercury, it's an old burned-out cinder and not so interesting. Now, here's this jaw-dropping thing that nobody ever predicted."
"The Solar System consists of eight "planets" Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. A new distinct class of objects called "dwarf planets" exist. "Planets" and "dwarf planets" are two distinct classes of objects. The first members of the "dwarf planet" category are Ceres, Pluto and 2003 UB313 (temporary name)."
"The star [Tycho's supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air,pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things."
"The universe is globe-shaped, either because that is the most perfect shape of all, needing no joint, an integral whole; or because that is the most capacious of shapes, which is most fitting because it is to contain and preserve all...The first and highest of all is the sphere of the fixed stars, which contains itself and all things, and is therefore motionless. It is the location of the universe, to which the motion and position of all the remaining stars is referred. For though some consider that it also changes in some respect, we shall assign another cause for its appearing to do so in our deduction of the Earth's motion. There follows Saturn, the first of the wandering stars, which completes its circuit in thirty years. After it comes Jupiter which moves in a twelve-year long revolution. Next is Mars, which goes round biennially. An annual revolution holds the fourth place, in which as we have said is contained the Earth along with the lunar sphere which is like an epicycle. In fifth place Venus returns every nine months. Lastly, Mercury holds the sixth place, making a circuit in the space of eighty days. In the middle of all is the seat of the Sun. For who in this most beautiful of temples would put this lamp in any other or better place than the one from which it can illuminate everything at the same time? Aptly indeed is he named by some the lantern of the universe, by others the mind, by others the ruler. Trismegistus called him the visible God, Sophocles' Electra, the watcher over all things. Thus indeed the Sun as if seated on a royal throne governs his household of Stars as they circle around him. Earth also is by no means cheated of the Moon's attendance, but as Aristotle says in his book On Animals the Moon has the closest affinity with the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth conceives from the Sun, and is made pregnant with annual offspring. We find, then, in this arrangement the marvellous symmetry of the universe, and a sure linking together in harmony of the motion and size of the spheres, such as could be perceived in no other way. For here one may understand, by attentive observation, why Jupiter appears to have a larger progression and retrogression than Saturn, and smaller than Mars, and again why Venus has larger ones than Mercury; why such a doubling back appears more frequently in Saturn than in Jupiter, and still more rarely in Mars and Venus than in Mercury; and furthermore why Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are nearer to the Earth when in opposition than in the region of their occultation by the Sun and re-appearance. Indeed Mars in particular at the time when it is visible throughout the night seems to equal Jupiter in size, though marked out by its reddish colour; yet it is scarcely distinguishable among stars of the second magnitude, though recognized by those who track it with careful attention."
"The Martian depressions form as carbon-dioxide ice sublimates—turns directly from a solid to a gas—during seasonal temperature changes, hinting that some type of sublimation may be happening on Mercury. But on Mercury it's happening in solid rock, not in ice, so it's sort of a unique expression of geological processes that happen elsewhere, but maybe not as vigorously."
"Earth has a blanket of air around it. Mercury does not. The blanket is what helps keep Earth from getting too hot or cold. Because it is so close to the sun, Mercury can be very hot. At night, Mercury gets very cold. We could not live on Mercury!"
"Mercury is hard to study because it is so close to the sun. People have never gone to Mercury. Spacecraft without people have gone. Mariner 10 was the first to visit Mercury. It flew by in 1974 and 1975. Not even half of Mercury was seen then. After that, nothing was sent to Mercury for more than 30 years. NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew by Mercury in 2008 and 2009. In March 2011, it began to orbit Mercury. MESSENGER will study parts of Mercury that have not been seen before. It will let scientists learn many new things about the plane."
"A day on Mercury lasts a lot longer than a day on Earth. One day on Mercury lasts 59 Earth days."
"I wol yow telle, as was me taught also, The foure spirites and the bodies sevene, By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene. The firste spirit quiksilver called is, The seconde orpyment, the thridde, ywis, Sal armonyak, and the firthe brimstoon. The bodys sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon: Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe, Mars iren, Mercurie quyksilver we clepe, Saturnus leed, and Jupiter is tyn, And Venus coper, by my fader kyn!"
"In awe, I watched the waxing moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an ambered chariot towards the ebony void of infinite space wherein the tethered belts of Jupiter and Mars hang, for ever festooned in their orbital majesty. And as I looked at all this I thought... I must put a roof on this toilet."
"Formation of the Solar System: Every 12 years Jupiter returns to the same position in the sky; every 370 days it disappears in the fire of the Sun in the evening to the west, 30 days later it reappears in the morning to the east"
"Jupiter was very large and bright. Apparently, there was a small reddish star appended to its side. This is called “an alliance.”"
"The Romans believed that gods and goddesses were in charge of everything on Earth. Mercury is named after the messenger for their gods. The Roman Mercury had wings on his helmet and shoes. He could travel very quickly from place to place. The planet Mercury moves quickly around the sun. That is how it got its name."
"Mercury is a little bigger than Earth's moon. It is made of heavier materials, like iron. But if you could weigh Mercury and the moon, Mercury would weigh a lot more. Mercury is heavy, but it is small. It would take more than 18 Mercurys to be as big as Earth."
"Rather under-represented in moons, petite in mass and magnitude, Earth does not fare well in comparison with gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and especially the Sun. Rejecting the idea the giant planets are poorly placed, Flammarion even so admits atmospheres of other plants are ‘essentially different’, from those on Earth, as there is no evidence extant to show they are ‘of a chemical composition analogous to our planet."
"But what exceeds all wonders, I have discovered four new planets and observed their proper and particular motions, different among themselves and from the motions of all the other stars; and these new planets move about another very large star [Jupiter] like Venus and Mercury, and perchance the other known planets, move about the Sun. As soon as this tract, which I shall send to all the philosophers and mathematicians as an announcement, is finished, I shall send a copy to the Most Serene Grand Duke, together with an excellent spyglass, so that he can verify all these truths."
"The planet Mercury is dotted with holes that appear to be unlike any other landform yet seen in the solar system. High-resolution photographs from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft revealed the shallow, rimless, irregularly shaped depressions—similar to the holes in Swiss cheese—in impact craters all over Mercury."
"Scientists strongly suspect that iron is the principal heavy element responsible for Mercury's high density. From this high density we can infer that the planet is composed of about 70% by weight of metallic iron and only 30% by weight of rocky material. Mercury thus contains more than twice as much iron per unit volume as any other planet or satellite in the Solar System."
"Since Mercury rotates once every 58.6 Earth days and orbits the Sun in 87.9 Earth days, it rotates exactly three times as it circles the Sun twice."
"Galileo claimed to have seen mountains on the Moon, to have proved the Milky Way was made up of tiny stars, and to have seen four small bodies orbiting Jupiter. These last, with an eye to getting a position in Florence, he quickly named 'the Mediciean Stars. But when all was finished, no one besides my brother could get a glimpse of Jupiter or Saturn, for the great length of the tube would not allow it to be kept in a straight line. This difficulty, however, was soon removed by substituting tin tubes."
"Although Mercury is small, it is very massive for its size (3.3x 1023 kg). Therefore, Mercury has almost the same surface gravity as the larger planet Mars."
"The features are widespread both in latitude and longitude. Dubbed hollows, the odd landforms can be tens of meters to a few kilometers wide, whereas the impact craters that contain them are tens of kilometers wide or bigger. The hollows are often seen in clusters on the walls, floors, and peaks of the craters. Many hollows have smooth, flat bottoms and feature highly reflective material...While Mercury had previously been thought of as a geologically dead planet, with few changes to it the hollows are much smaller than known volcanic pits, and the holes appear in places on Mercury that aren't likely to have experienced volcanic activity."
"The word planet comes from the Greek for “wanderer,” because the planets' positions change relative to those of the stars. The eight (formerly nine) recognized planets that orbit the Sun are, in order of increasing distance, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The first four are called terrestrial planets and the next four giant, or Jovian, planets."
"Proctor had banished Solar system life from any moon or planet other than Earth. On Mars it had disappeared, though, 'the development of higher forms of life may have been less complete than on our earth'. Jupiter lay in wait. Lifeless still, it was evolving an enabling habitat, one that would embrace 'creatures far higher in the scale of being than any that have inhabited, or may inhabit, the earth. For Proctor, in time even the Sun will harbour life."
"Mercury goes around the sun the fastest of all the planets. Mercury has no moons."
"Mercury's magnetic field was thought to be internally generated and similar in form to the Earth's field."
"Mercury's orbit around the Sun is more elliptical than any other planet (Pluto is a Kuiper belt object). Its eccentricity, however, is still small enough that the orbit appears almost circular."
"The first pictures of Mercury were taken on 24 March 1974 from a distance of 5.5 million km...as Mariner 10 neared Mercury the images showed a heavily cratered surface superficially resembling the Moon’s."
"In 1639 Giovanni Zupus discovered that Mercury went through phases like the Moon....These observations were profoundly significant because they were proof that the Copernican theory was correct and the earth was not at the center of the Universe."
"Observations of the bright side of the Moon and Mercury were made with the airglow spectrometer and obtained the first and only measurements of Mercury in the EUV (extreme ultraviolet radiation). In addition, Venus, and hydrogen and helium radiation emanating from outside the Solar System were observed with the spectrometer."
"Featured in his Celestial Scenery (1837), Dick discusses the cosmos, as seen from Mars, Jupiter, the planetoids, and beyond. Using a method similar to that of Huygens, Dick takes the topic further still, allotting populations to all the planetary bodies of the solar system, and even for the rings of Saturn, a rather arresting idea."
"Temperatures on Mercury vary enormously. The planet is only is about 46 million km from the Sun at perihelion. At the equator, near the noon, the surface temperature reaches 427 degrees C (800 degrees F). At night just before sunrise, however, the temperature plunges to a frigid – 183 degrees C."
"There is ample linguistic evidence that some of the first people to observe Mercury and commit the planet to the immortality of myth were Germanic people and Scandinavians who navigated far south from their native lands into what is now the Mediterranean and the coasts of Africa. Mercury was connected with the deity Woodan, or Odin among the northern seafarers. In Italy ancient people called Mercury Boudha, a word with the same origin as Woodan or Odin. The connection lives on in our current use of English day of week Wednesday derived from Woodan’s day."
"As seen from Earth, both Mercury and Venus stay close to the Sun because they orbit the Sun within the Earth's orbit. At their largest angular distance from the Sun as seen from Earth, they are at greatest elongation."
"Most ancient cultures were familiar with the twilight wanderers and guardian of the Sun. Because Mercury is closest planet to the Sun, its hurried orbit takes just 88 Earth days, and switches its appearance from east (morning twilight) to west (evening twilight) in the sky with a slightly variable period of about three months. Mercury also has an orbital plane that is tilted with respect to that of the Earth, so it also bobs up and down in the sky relative to the plane of the Earth and the Sun. Thus, it is sometimes lower than the Sun in declination and at other times it is higher. These two striking orbital peculiarities further contribute to Mercury's elusiveness....By far Mercury has been, most familiar to people living in equatorial and tropical latitudes, especially those with dry climates an clear skies."
"Mercury experiences the most extreme temperature range of any planet or satellite in the Solar System."
"Surely no astronomer worthy the name can regard this grand orb as the cinder-centred globe of watery matter so contemptuously dealt with by one who, be remembered thankfully was not an astronomer...Jupiter in a sense a Sun...a source of heat which serves its satellites on which life – even such forms of life as we are familiar with – may still exist...[the gas giant] must be intended one day the abode of noble races."
"The Planet closest to the Sun is a beautiful sight, it shines brightly in the twilight sky. In our busy modern culture, most people know they can see Mercury with the naked eye only after a purposeful search, having found its location for the evening or morning from an astronomical source."
"If the Moon is not inhabited, as observations suggest based on the absence of water and an atmosphere, this says little about life on other worlds, save for those of similar rank, i.e., other moons. Which means that other planets, especially those superior and majestic worlds, such as Saturn and Jupiter, should be equal in all ways to the Earth, intelligent inhabitants included."
"The astronomical symbol of Mercury [☿] can be traced to a medieval Greek manuscript where it takes the form ?. The horizontal cross is a modern addition. The "horns" at the top of the symbol represent the wings of this speedy planet It is from the use of the name Hermes for Mercury that the usage of Hermean for characteristics of Mercury became popular during the 19th century and continues to be used by some today."
"Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise."
"As the whorls differ from one another in respect of “ breadth of rim”, the first and outermost whorl is that which has its circular rim the broadest, and the sixth whorl comes next to it in regard to breadth of rim; and, proceeding in order of breadth, the fourth whorl comes third, and the eighth fourth, and the seventh fifth, and the fifth sixth, and the third seventh, and the second eighth.' Thus we have now a new classification of the heavenly bodies, in the following sequence: 1. The Fixed Stars. 2. Venus. 3. Mars. 4. The Moon. 5. The Sun. 6. Mercury. 7. Jupiter. 8. Saturn."
"Why should Venus and Mercury have no satellites, and by what, when they exist, were they formed? The Astronomers 'do not know.' Because, we say, science has only one key — the key of matter — to open the mysteries of nature withal, while occult philosophy has seven keys and explains that which science fails to see. Mercury and Venus have no satellites, but they had 'parents' just as the Earth had. Both are far older than the Earth, and, before the latter reaches her seventh Round, her mother Moon will have dissolved into thin air, as the 'Moons' of the other planets have, or have not, as the case may be, since there are planets which have several moons — a mystery again which no Oedipus of astronomy has solved."