Albert. Albert Einstein

Resources are the foundation of the development of civilization. Without the support of rich resources, human science and technology cannot achieve rapid development. Human beings can achieve a great leap in science and technology in just over 200 years, which is inseparable from the earth's rich metal resources.

As we all know, in the long years of evolution, Mother Earth has left enormous mineral resources to mankind. In the vast universe, hydrogen occupies the main element position, and its content is also the most. The evolution of the universe and the formation of galaxies and planets all need the cooperation of various elements, especially the birth and evolution of life, which requires rich elements.

In the universe, the formation of heavy elements is not so easy, which is basically related to stars. The nuclear fusion reaction inside a star can convert hydrogen into helium, iron and so on. It's just that stars rely on internal nuclear fusion to convert into iron at most, and heavier elements need supernova explosions at the end of stars.

Supernova explosions of stars can be transformed into more kinds of metal heavy elements. The formation of the solar system was due to a supernova explosion at that time, which led to the birth of the sun and the formation of eight planets. Therefore, we will see that the solar system is very rich in resources, and the earth is rich in various metal resources.

Metal resources are very important for the development of human science and technology. Many scientific and technological items we need in our daily life are inseparable from the support of metal resources. With the rapid development of human science and technology, there will be more and more demand for metal resources in the future. The resources on the earth are limited, especially these metal elements, and they are being consumed faster and faster.

If the metal resources on the earth are exhausted and human civilization wants to develop, we need to look at other planets in the solar system. Most of the metal elements are rocky planets, and the moon around the earth is also a rocky planet rich in metal elements, so the moon will become an important resource exploitation base for mankind in the future.

Besides the moon, four of the eight planets in the solar system are rocky planets. Besides the Earth, there are Mercury, Venus and Mars. For Mars, I believe many friends know it very well. It is the planet that human beings have explored and learned the most since they left the earth.

Mars is a rocky planet, which naturally has a lot of metal resources, but it is of greater significance to mankind, and it may be the second home of mankind. Therefore, it is unlikely that human beings will overexploit the resources of Mars in the future, so as not to cause serious damage to the ecological environment of Mars.

Venus is a planet of purgatory, with a surface temperature as high as 460 degrees Celsius, and is also rich in metal resources. Finally, there is mercury, which is similar in mass and volume to the moon, so many people think that there is nothing special about mercury, and it is unnecessary to spend huge time and energy exploring and studying it. So is this really the case?

Yes, in terms of volume, mercury is indeed about the size of the moon, and there are many similarities. It doesn't seem to have much exploration value. But this is not the case. Mercury is a real metal planet in the solar system.

As we all know, Mercury is the closest planet to the sun among the eight planets, only about 57.9 million kilometers. It is precisely because it is close to the sun that the unstable elements on the surface are stripped step by step, and all that can be left are basically metal elements with higher density.

Through preliminary exploration, scientists found that Mercury is a veritable metal planet with a metal content as high as 70%. If we can develop the resources on Mercury, it will be available for human use for a long time. According to the current demand for metal elements, the metal on Venus can be used by human beings for 200 billion years.

Of course, the use of 200 billion is only estimated by the current level of science and technology of mankind. In fact, with the rapid development of human science and technology, the demand for metal resources is increasing, and the metal on mercury cannot be used for such a long time. Even so, this relatively large metal planet is very important for human development and can solve the large demand for metal elements in the future.

Seeing this, some friends may say that there are so many metal resources in mercury that human beings should explore and try to exploit mercury resources as soon as possible. The idea is beautiful, but it is not easy to do. I believe many friends know that after leaving the earth, humans have successively explored Venus and Mars, and even went to the distant edge of the solar system for exploration, but only once detected Mercury. Why?

Theoretically speaking, Mercury is not far from the Earth, and the farthest distance is only 208 million kilometers. If we launch a mercury probe, it shouldn't take long to get there. In fact, the Mercury probe Messenger launched on August 3, 2004 took nearly seven years to reach the orbit of Mercury.

In the past seven years, Messenger has flown a total of about 7.9 billion kilometers. Why does it travel 7.9 billion kilometers to 208 million kilometers? This is related to the position of the water star. As we said before, the average distance between mercury and the sun is only 57.9 million kilometers. At such a close distance, Mercury needs a faster revolution speed to keep moving around the sun.

According to detection, the revolution speed of Mercury is about 48 kilometers per second. It is difficult for human detectors to keep up with such a fast rotation speed. Moreover, the mass of mercury is relatively small, only 5.6% of the mass of the earth, which means that its gravity is also very small.

In this case, if the mercury probe wants to orbit around Mercury, it needs a closer orbital distance and needs to be close enough to Mercury. But if it's too close to Mercury, it's easy to crash, not to mention we need the gravity of the sun. The closer the probe is to the sun, the faster it will fly under the action of gravity, which will easily get out of control.

Therefore, in order to reach the orbit of Mercury better and safer, the detector can't take shortcuts, but has to walk a longer distance and take a longer time to make a big circle, and it has to make many bends. In this way, with the help of the gravity of the sun, the earth and Venus, the detector can be fine-tuned to keep its flight state better and gradually approach Mercury.

It is difficult for the probe to get close to the orbit of Mercury, let alone mine metal resources. Therefore, for human beings, mercury is still just a delicious food that can be smelled but not eaten. It is hoped that the development of rich mercury resources needs the further development of human science and technology.