What If You Spent 5 Seconds on Mercury?

Mercury is a strange hot mess of a planet this rock is the closest one to the Sun but its surface temperatures can plummet to as low as -180° celsus it has the strangest sunrises and sunsets in the entire solar system and one day on this planet lasts about 2 years but you don't have to survive a whole day down there we're sending our team member Chase on a mission to spend just 5 seconds on Mercury huh Mercury doesn't sound so bad I just don't get why it's so cold it should be flaming hot detecting extreme

temperature fluctuations yeah Mercury is hot and cold at the same time that's because instead of a proper atmosphere mercury has an exosphere and this exosphere is almost as thin as the vacuum of space it doesn't contain enough molecules to transfer heat around the planet and that means surface temperatures go from one extreme to the other during the day the surface is blasted by intense sunlight and that results in severe heat like 430° C then that night all that heat gets lost in space and the temperatures drop to -180° C well at least there's no dust

storms on Mercury sure there's no weather and no climate on this planet but there are plenty of things that can kill you extreme heat intense cold lack of breathable air severe solar radiation and if anything goes wrong with your space suit you'll be toast toast or popsicle depending on where I land you know what I've died way too many times to go out there without prep Rico fire up the simulator rron x29 Sim on standby simulator Atron fine uh you know run the thing find me the uh safest place to land please Rico Chop Chop

yeah finding a perfect landing spot on Mercury won't be easy Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system even smaller than Saturn's moon Titan and its terrain is just as bumpy as its temperature fluctuations it has so many craters Cliffs and ridges that finding a flat surface to land on will be a big if then of course there's the lack of atmosphere which makes Landing even bumpier without air resistance your spaceship will be approaching the surface at a very high speed so if you're not interested in crashing you'll need a spaceship with a powerful

propulsion system to slow you down during descent and Mercury's proximity to the sun complicates things even more that's because the sun's enormous gravity causes this planet to orbit the star on an elliptical path that means that sometimes Mercury is closer to the Sun and other times it's further away so landing on Mercury would be like trying to hit a moving Target while being pulled strongly by the sun all the while trying to manage your speed in a place where you can't just parachute down yeah it's hard if you managed to drop down onto Mercury during

its daytime it would feel like you landed in an oven the sun on this side of the planet is so incredibly intense that it will roast you alive and Mercury's daytime lasts a long time to be specific one solar day on this planet goes for 176 Earth days weirdly that's twice as long as one year on Mercury as it only takes 88 Earth days to revolve around the Sun of course there's no way you'd last a full Mercury day you'd cook within minutes now even NASA's spacewalk suits are designed to withstand temperatures of 120° C

Mercury is 3 and 1/2 times more scorching than that your space suits outer layers would start degrading within seconds in minutes your suits critical systems like life support and cooling would fail and you'd experience instant heat stroke then you'd be cooked and die oh so you're saying I could last 5 seconds on there that's all I needed to hear Rico initiate Landing sequence I don't recommend that your chances of returning to the ship after a 5-second walk on Mercury's daytime time surface are calculating 0.012% Rico Rico my God you said to ruin all the fun

every time okay what are my other options calculating try landing on Mercury's night side okay now the Dark Side of mercury would be freezing detecting the temperature of - 180° C even your SPAC suit's most ad Advanced heating system wouldn't last long in this brutal environment within minutes your heaters would fail and hypothermia would set in your body temperature would start dropping rapidly in only 10 minutes you'd be dead and that's if nothing else goes wrong yeah yeah yeah landing on Mercury's night side is possible but it would suck like I wouldn't see a thing

there what's the point in going to a whole new planet if you can't enjoy the views no I'll take my chances with Mercury's extreme heat thank you very much well hold on maybe you don't have to you could find a landing location between the two extremes it's called The Terminator Zone The terminat Zone yeah this is the zone between the day and night and temperatures there might be bearable calculating the Terminator Zone temperatures would be extremely hard the temperature on Mercury drops to the streams rapidly that's true but this is your best shot at spending

5 seconds on Mercury and hey remember I mentioned the strange sunrises and sunsets on Mercury well here's your chance to see them too mercury has a double Sunrise it's because it moves on its axis very slowly but orbits the sun very quickly at certain points the orbital speed becomes faster than its rotational speed and and if you were standing on Mercury at that moment you'd see the sunrise then stop move back and rise again oh cool double Sunrise Rico okay let's do this let's land this time for [Music] real Landing complete the temperature reading at

130° c ah oh okay yeah feeling toasty but not cooked another successful mission for the Astro King and his dumb sidekick Rico okay so when do we get to see this double Sunrise you must remain on Mercury's surface for a few hours to witness the retrograde Sunrise oh why didn't you say that before we landed okay well I mean it's not that bad I could stick around here for a few hours I don't recommend that the temperature will rise drastically in 3.2 hours God Rico just say three hours does it's fine I'll be fine okay

I'll stay right here next to the ship where ow okay that rock is hot don't read into [Music] that nice Rico uh what was that a micr meteorite hit your space suit you're losing oxygen it's okay H can't breathe why can't I ever get hit by a macro meteorite why does this always take so long I didn't even see the double Sunrise I hope what if guy puts it on his patreon because I subscribed last month at the red giant deer and in pitched a story where I don't die oh classic Chase but don't worry

he'll be back for his next adventure he always comes back what Adventure should we send him on next how about something chill with a gorgeous view of Jupiter in the sky well that's a story for another what is we've already taken you to Titan Venus even Uranus and there's so much more we want to show you that's why we launched the whatif Explorers Club on patreon it's where we'll give you the top secret behind the scenes extended directors Cuts mind-blowing art epic merch discounts and Our Endless Love and gratitude oh and we'll even let you

pitch us ideas for upcoming episodes support us on patreon to get exclusive content and help us set chased to his death over and over and over [Music] again