Space News/UFO's Etc...(Discussion/Pics/Vids)
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Eta Aquarids meteor shower peaks this week
The Eta Aquarids meteor shower will put on a brilliant show for stargazers as it peaks Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The annual light show starts in mid-April but really starts to dazzle in the first week of May. It's created by the dusty debris left behind by Halley's Comet, which flew by Earth in 1986.
Although the famous comet won't be entering our solar system again until 2061, its remnants appear in our skies each year. The frozen particles from the comet disintegrate in our atmosphere, creating a bright and colorful display.
What's happening above?
The Eta Aquarids are highly visible for people living in the Southern Hemisphere, but more difficult to observe for those north of the equator.
Hear CNN Meteorologist Brandon Miller pronounce "Eta Aquarids"
Observers in the Northern Hemisphere can expect to see about 10 meteors per hour. They can also see "earthgrazers," long meteors that seem as though they are skimming the surface of our planet, just along the horizon.
These meteors are known for their speed, traveling about 148,000 mph into the Earth's atmosphere. Since they are moving by so quickly, they often leave behind "trains," glowing bits of debris that streak the night sky.
No special equipment is required to view the celestial event. All observers need are clear skies.
Source -- CNN
View attachment 1695
The Eta Aquarids meteor shower will put on a brilliant show for stargazers as it peaks Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The annual light show starts in mid-April but really starts to dazzle in the first week of May. It's created by the dusty debris left behind by Halley's Comet, which flew by Earth in 1986.
Although the famous comet won't be entering our solar system again until 2061, its remnants appear in our skies each year. The frozen particles from the comet disintegrate in our atmosphere, creating a bright and colorful display.
What's happening above?
The Eta Aquarids are highly visible for people living in the Southern Hemisphere, but more difficult to observe for those north of the equator.
Hear CNN Meteorologist Brandon Miller pronounce "Eta Aquarids"
Observers in the Northern Hemisphere can expect to see about 10 meteors per hour. They can also see "earthgrazers," long meteors that seem as though they are skimming the surface of our planet, just along the horizon.
These meteors are known for their speed, traveling about 148,000 mph into the Earth's atmosphere. Since they are moving by so quickly, they often leave behind "trains," glowing bits of debris that streak the night sky.
No special equipment is required to view the celestial event. All observers need are clear skies.
Source -- CNN
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http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/05/tech/eta-aquarids-meteor-shower-irpt/index.htmlView attachment 1695
It will be visible with the naked eye, but being able to see it is contingent on being able to differentiate it from the rest of the glowing menagerie. Check this image and the page for observational tips.
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https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/skyreportNice thanks for the Ilan bummer part for me is it will still be daylight here I will miss it 
or just have to wait a few hours...
or just have to wait a few hours...
Yes. everything has to be adjusted a bit. I saw it last week on a clear night, but it was really just one more glowing speck in the night sky. However, I did enjoy knowing the identity of that particular glowing speck.
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What if a black hole swallowed Earth? Scientist describes 3 possible scenarios
Reuters News | 16 February 2016
Black holes are shrouded in mystery despite scientists’ attention, but a British academic has now outlined three ways we could perish if one ever swallowed Earth – and they'll make you want to keep on the good side of the supermassive galactic phenomena.Reuters News | 16 February 2016
None of the three scenarios is particularly pretty, though one of them at least has an interesting title.
'Spaghettification'
Although the name is imaginative and perhaps even fun to say, make no mistake – the process would be anything but fun. In fact, it would involve being stretched out like spaghetti, in a procedure that seems painful and terrifying.
“In brief, if you stray too close to a black hole, then you will stretch out, just like spaghetti. This effect is caused due to a gravitation gradient across your body,” Kevin Pimbblet, a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Hull, wrote in an article for The Conversation.
He went on to explain that the two sides of a human – the feet and arms – would be pulled in different directions, lengthening the body and thinning out the middle.
“Hence, your body or any other object, such as Earth, will start to resemble spaghetti long before it hits the center of the black hole,” Pimbblet wrote.
Death from radiation
But don't worry, there's a chance you'd be fried by radiation before being “spaghettified.”
Radiation is generated when a black hole feasts on new material.
“This is a problem for anything orbiting (or near) a black hole, as it is very hot indeed. Long before we would be spaghettified, the sheer power of this radiation would fry us,” Pimbblet wrote.
Becoming a hologram
But if turning into a piece of spaghetti and being fried by radiation sound completely unappealing, there is potentially a third option – the world could be transformed into a hologram, and humans probably wouldn't even realize it.
According to Pimbblet, if a black hole appeared next to Earth, the same effects that produced spaghettification would start to take effect and “the doom of the entire planet would be at hand.”
But there's potentially light at the end of the black hole. We might not even notice if Earth was swallowed, because everything would appear as it once was – at least for a short period of time.
“In this case, it could be some time before disaster struck,” the physics professor wrote.
Or we could also live holographically, Pimbblet noted, referencing a theory created last year by Dr. Samir Mathur from Ohio State University (OSU).
The theory states that everything touching a black hole is not destroyed, but rather becomes an imperfect copy of itself, existing exactly as it did before.
In short, it means that black holes are seen not as killers, but as “benign copy machines,” OSU said at the time.
While that option clearly seems most appealing, no one can predict what may or may not happen in the future. In the meantime, enjoy life on Earth and try not to upset the galactic bullies lurking in the depths of the universe.
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Did a Super-Mega-Ultra Neutrino Come From a Black Hole Gobbling Down Matter 10 Billion Light-Years Away?
By Phil Plait | May 6, 2016 Slate.com
By Phil Plait | May 6, 2016 Slate.com
Astronomers may have solved a mystery that started a few years ago. Or 9.5 billion years ago, depending on how you look at it.
Even better? This mystery involves, in no particular order: neutrinos, Antarctica, faster than light travel, bizarre radiation, the Fermi observatory, gamma rays, and a supermassive black hole with its barrel aimed right at us. That’s like astronomical mystery bingo right there.
OK, here’s how this played out.
In 2012, astronomers detected an extremely high-energy neutrino slamming into the ground. Neutrinos are a weird kind of subatomic particle, created by things like nuclear fusion in the Sun’s core, fission in nuclear reactors on Earth, stars exploding out in the Universe, and even when matter falls into a black hole. Neutrinos are very standoffish and don’t react to matter; they can easily pass through the entire Earth like it was completely transparent. Which to them it really is.
So detecting them is very difficult. But, it turns out, there’s a clever way to see them: Sometimes very high-energy neutrinos slam into ice molecules, creating a barrage of subatomic particles like shrapnel. These move so rapidly from the collision that they actually move faster than the speed of light through the ice. (Note: Before you start angrily writing comments, remember that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit in a vacuum; light slows down when passing through solids, so the particles were moving faster than light can through the ice, but not faster than light can through a vacuum.)
When they do this, they create a flash of energy that’s the equivalent of a sonic boom, but with light. I sometimes call this a photonic boom, but the technical term is Cherenkov radiation. That flash of blue light can be detected if the ice is clear enough. There are parts of Antarctica where that’s the case, and so scientists built IceCube, a series of detectors buried deep in the south polar ice.
In 2012 it detected a whopper of a neutrino (nicknamed Big Bird; all these events are named after Sesame Street characters to make it easier to keep track of them). The energy in that single neutrino was staggering beyond staggering: It contained 1,000 trillion times as much energy as a photon of visible light. If that neutrino had hit someone they would have felt it. A blow from a single subatomic particle. Egads.
The mystery is a bit obvious: What the heck can create a neutrino with that kind of soul-crushing energy?
One suspect is a supermassive black hole, the kind located in the centers of galaxies. Matter falling into them forms a swirling disk, and can also focus twin beams of matter and energy that scream out of the poles of the disk at very high speeds. Many such active galaxies are known, and most emit energy across the electromagnetic spectrum at one level or another. But if the beams are aimed right at us, we see a lot of very high energy light from them, including gamma rays. We call these objects blazars.
We see blazars all over the sky, though. Is there any way to narrow down the suspect list?
The suspect blazar blasts out gamma rays, as seen by Fermi.
Yes! IceCube was able to track the subatomic shrapnel shower backward, upward, and give a very rough area in the sky from which it must have come. Astronomers then used Fermi, an orbiting gamma-ray observatory, to see if any blazars happened to be particularly active at that time.
And they did. Confirming this with TANAMI, an array of radio telescopes, they found that the blazar PKS B1424-418 had a monstrous flare-up during this time. During the yearlong blast, it blazed with gamma rays 15–30 times brighter than usual. That’s just such an event that could create the ultra-high energy of Big Bird.
Astronomer Roopesh Ojha, from the Fermi team, gives his perspective on this event:
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https://youtu.be/Fq-5RI9C69ISo, case closed? Well, maybe. Blazars don’t flare like that often, and the fact that it happened at the right place at the right time is pretty compelling. There’s always room for doubt, but this seems like the astronomers have made a pretty good case. They found the motive, means, and opportunity.
Now I know at this point your head may be swimming with all these terms and technology, but I still have one more thing I want to plant into your brain. Think on this for a moment: PKS B1424-418 is one of the brightest gamma ray sources in the sky … even though it’s located 9.5 billion light-years from Earth. That’s two-thirds of the way to the edge of the observable Universe!
That’s a long, long way. And yet it produces enough energy to shine brightly in our skies, if you have gamma ray eyes. Which, I’ll note, astronomers do.
And that mind-stompingly distant galaxy produced a hail of subatomic particles that shot across the cosmos at just a hair under the speed of light, passing galaxies and clouds of dust and gas and heaven knows what else, only to be stopped by a single molecule of frozen water on a tiny blue-green planet, creating a flash of light so faint it took sophisticated technology and advanced science to see it at all.
And astronomers traced that flash of light led backwards to one of the most energetic and violent objects in the Universe.
Look. I love science fiction, and superhero movies, and all that. But no matter how bizarre a story fiction tells, they can’t hold a candle to the real thing.
The Universe has way better stories than we do. And we read them through science.
I think Plait said it pretty well in the last article, "Look. I love science fiction, and superhero movies, and all that. But no matter how bizarre a story fiction tells, they can’t hold a candle to the real thing."
FBI declassified files
this is very interesting :
I think disclosure is near. the commercials have them . the joking of it is dying down. just tell us once & for all.
now the FBI website puts stuff on there site. something is definitely up!
this is very interesting :
I think disclosure is near. the commercials have them . the joking of it is dying down. just tell us once & for all.
now the FBI website puts stuff on there site. something is definitely up!
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http://www.ancient-code.com/the-fbi-admits-visits-of-beings-from-other-dimensions-declassified-fbi-document/I wouldn't say we should discount this material, but it is essentially just reports the FBI compiled from witnesses over the years and has now made public. The FBI never said they corroborated any of the material or contacted any of the entities described. It's still nice to see the witnesses' descriptions being made publicly available, however. I thank you for the post and so do the tall, partially transparent visitors who are making me type this.
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Parallel Universes: Theories & Evidence
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | April 28, 2016 12:18am ET
Our universe may live in one bubble that is sitting in a network of bubble universes in space.
Credit: Sandy MacKenzie | Shutterstock
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | April 28, 2016 12:18am ET
Credit: Sandy MacKenzie | Shutterstock
Is our universe unique? From science fiction to science fact, there is a proposal out there that suggests that there could be other universes besides our own, where all the choices you made in this life played out in alternate realities. So, instead of turning down that job offer that took you from the United States to China, the alternate universe would show the outcome if you decided to venture to Asia instead.
The idea is pervasive in comic books and movies. For example, in the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot, the premise is that the Kirk and Spock portrayed by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are in an alternate timeline apart from the William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy versions of the characters.
The concept is known as a "parallel universe," and is a facet of the astronomical theory of the multiverse. There actually is quite a bit of evidence out there for a multiverse. First, it is useful to understand how our universe is believed to have come to be.
Arguing for a multiverse
Around 13.7 billion years ago, simply speaking, everything we know of in the cosmos was an infinitesimal singularity. Then, according to the Big Bang theory, some unknown trigger caused it to expand and inflate in three-dimensional space. As the immense energy of this initial expansion cooled, light began to shine through. Eventually, the small particles began to form into the larger pieces of matter we know today, such as galaxies, stars and planets.
One big question with this theory is: are we the only universe out there. With our current technology, we are limited to observations within this universe because the universe is curved and we are inside the fishbowl, unable to see the outside of it (if there is an outside.)
There are at least five theories why a multiverse is possible, as a 2012 Space.com article explained
1. We don't know what the shape of space-time is exactly. One prominent theory is that it is flat and goes on forever. This would present the possibility of many universes being out there. But with that topic in mind, it's possible that universes can start repeating themselves. That's because particles can only be put together in so many ways. More about that in a moment.
2. Another theory for multiple universes comes from "eternal inflation." Based on research from Tufts University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, when looking at space-time as a whole, some areas of space stop inflating like the Big Bang inflated our own universe. Others, however, will keep getting larger. So if we picture our own universe as a bubble, it is sitting in a network of bubble universes of space. What's interesting about this theory is the other universes could have very different laws of physics than our own, since they are not linked.
3. Or perhaps multiple universes can follow the theory of quantum mechanics (how subatomic particles behave), as part of the "daughter universe" theory. If you follow the laws of probability, it suggests that for every outcome that could come from one of your decisions, there would be a range of universes — each of which saw one outcome come to be. So in one universe, you took that job to China. In another, perhaps you were on your way and your plane landed somewhere different, and you decided to stay. And so on.
4. Another possible avenue is exploring mathematical universes, which, simply put, explain that the structure of mathematics may change depending in which universe you reside. "A mathematical structure is something that you can describe in a way that's completely independent of human baggage," said theory-proposer Max Tegmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as quoted in the 2012 article. "I really believe that there is this universe out there that can exist independently of me that would continue to exist even if there were no humans."
5. And last but not least as the idea of parallel universes. To go back to the idea that space-time is flat, the number of possible particle configurations in multiple universes would be limited to 10^10^122 distinct possibilities, to be exact. So, with an infinite number of cosmic patches, the particle arrangements within them must repeat — infinitely many times over. This means there are infinitely many "parallel universes": cosmic patches exactly the same as ours (containing someone exactly like you), as well as patches that differ by just one particle's position, patches that differ by two particles' positions, and so on down to patches that are totally different from ours.
Arguing against a parallel universe
Not everyone agrees with the parallel universe theory, however. A 2015 article on Medium by astrophysicist Ethan Siegal agreed that space-time could go on forever in theory, but said that there are some limitations with that idea.
The key problem is the universe is just under 14 billion years old. So our universe's age itself is obviously not infinite, but a finite amount. This would (simply put) limit the number of possibilities for particles to rearrange themselves, and sadly make it less possible that your alternate self did get on that plane after all to see China.
Also, the expansion at the beginning of the universe took place exponentially because there was so much "energy inherent to space itself," he said. But over time, that inflation obviously slowed — those particles of matter created at the Big Bang are not continuing to expand, he pointed out. Among his conclusions: that means that multiverses would have different rates of inflation and different times (longer or shorter) for inflation. This decreases the possibilities of universes similar to our own.
"Even setting aside issues that there may be an infinite number of possible values for fundamental constants, particles and interactions, and even setting aside interpretation issues such as whether the many-worlds-interpretation actually describes our physical reality," Siegal said, "the fact of the matter is that the number of possible outcomes rises so quickly — so much faster than merely exponentially — that unless inflation has been occurring for a truly infinite amount of time, there are no parallel universes identical to this one."
But rather than seeing this lack of other universes as a limitation, Siegal instead takes the philosophy that it shows how important it is to celebrate being unique. He advises to make the choices that work for you, which "leave you with no regrets." That's because there are no other realities where the choices of your dream self play out; you, therefore, are the only person that can make those choices happen.
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Before the Transit of Mercury: forgotten forerunners of an astronomical revolution
Karl Galle (The Guardian) | Monday 9 May 2016
A manuscript note in the Royal Society Library hints at an observing program that
would eventually transform our ability to predict the motions of the planets.
View attachment 1706
Willibald Pirckheimer notes his observation of a Transit of Mercury on 18 March 1504.
Written in the margin of astronomical tables by Johannes Regiomontanus,
now in the Royal Society Library, London, UK. Photograph: Karl Galle/Royal Society Library
“Today I saw Mercury.” This terse remark scrawled inside a 16th-century almanac could reflect anyone watching today’s transit of Mercury across the Sun. The winding path this observation took after it was recorded, however, traces a century-long story leading through the transformation of both our understanding of the cosmos and the practice of astronomy itself.Karl Galle (The Guardian) | Monday 9 May 2016
A manuscript note in the Royal Society Library hints at an observing program that
would eventually transform our ability to predict the motions of the planets.
View attachment 1706
Willibald Pirckheimer notes his observation of a Transit of Mercury on 18 March 1504.
Written in the margin of astronomical tables by Johannes Regiomontanus,
now in the Royal Society Library, London, UK. Photograph: Karl Galle/Royal Society Library
Mercury’s observer in this case was Willibald Pirckheimer, a German humanist who made diary notes in a set of astronomical tables by Johannes Regiomontanus, which are now preserved in the Royal Society Library. Pirckheimer almost certainly wasn’t alone, as the same Mercury sighting (early in the evening of 18 March 1504) was recorded in more detail by his friend Bernhard Walther, who had inherited Regiomontanus’ observation program and copious manuscripts. Perhaps it was solely an observing session, or perhaps it preceded one of the festive banquets Nuremberg’s humanists were known for. We may not know the evening’s full itinerary, but it’s a reminder that science was rarely a solo activity even back then.
What we do know, however, is the probable location where the sighting was made. When Walther died three months later, his sizeable house was purchased by Pirckheimer’s best friend and fellow investigator of nature Albrecht Dürer. Today the house is a museum to Dürer’s life and art, but if you walk around back, you can still see the observation ledge for astronomical instruments that Walther constructed beneath a top-floor window.
Walther’s numerous and detailed observations, including some 746 midday solar altitudes, suggest he may have been trying to construct his own reformed model of celestial motions. Although he died before completing any theoretical work, the next generation of Nuremberg astronomers preserved his books and manuscripts – after Pirckheimer and Dürer purchased a few volumes from the estate for themselves – just as Walther had done for his mentor Regiomontanus.
The observations themselves remained unpublished until a young Wittenberg professor named Georg Rheticus visited Nuremberg in early 1539 and then set off on the long trek to Frombork, where a church canon named Nicholas Copernicus was rumored to have developed a startling new theory putting the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the cosmos. When Rheticus returned carrying Copernicus’s manuscript for the city’s most famous printer, three of Walther’s Mercury observations, including the one Pirckheimer recorded, were included in the final text. Two were incorrectly attributed to Johannes Schöner, then a caretaker for the Regiomontanus and Walther materials, but Schöner set the record straight by publishing Walther’s complete observations the following year.
From Copernicus to Kepler
Why did Copernicus even need these Mercury observations at all? In the most basic historical accounts of his new cosmological theory, he simply switched the positions of the Earth and Sun, putting our planet into motion without really rearranging the other planets. In fact, the heliocentric idea appeared first as a brief outline in his book’s opening leaves and was followed by over 350 pages of often brain-bending mathematical models for predicting the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets.
View attachment 1707
Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543),
showing how early in the book his illustration
of the heliocentric system occurs. Image courtesy of the Linda Hall Library.
Photograph: Karl Galle/Linda Hall Library, Kansas City
The key to making these models work was having just enough measurements of key configurations – when planets were directly opposite or at greatest elongation from the Sun, for example – to compute mean motions over time. As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury was notoriously difficult to spot, and Frombork’s greater northern latitude made the problem worse by reducing the planet’s vertical angle above the horizon. For this reason, even three of Walther’s Mercury observations were enough to help fill out Copernicus’s model of the planet’s motions.Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543),
showing how early in the book his illustration
of the heliocentric system occurs. Image courtesy of the Linda Hall Library.
Photograph: Karl Galle/Linda Hall Library, Kansas City
If opportunistically using a few decades-old measurements symbolises the astronomy of Copernicus’s time, however, the imperfection of the results (after several rounds of calculations, Copernicus finally rounded Walther’s numbers upward to make them better fit his models) were a stimulation to the astronomy that followed. In the coming decades, astronomers would no longer settle for averaging a handful of key measurements, instead embarking on increasingly ambitious programs to quantify celestial positions in every nightly configuration. Walther’s simple window ledge thus gave way to ever larger instruments and observatories at Uraniborg and elsewhere.
Walther’s observations did not disappear, however. On the contrary, having accurate measurements from the more distant past remained a key part of refining the long-term accuracy of astronomical tables. The value of this quotidian grind of observing and number-crunching is often forgotten in histories that emphasize a few big ideas like heliocentrism or elliptical orbits, but nothing encapsulates its core role in early astronomy like Kepler’s nearly three decades of slaving over his Rudolphine Tables, drawing not just from Tycho Brahe’s observations at Uraniborg but from meticulous attempts to adjust Walther’s data for atmospheric refraction and stellar precession.
Walther even photobombed the famous frontispiece to Kepler’s tables displaying historical figures from astronomy. While Copernicus and Tycho occupy the image’s center, lurking just behind Copernicus’s head is a book labeled “Observations of Regiomontanus and Walther.”
Predicting Transits of Mercury
For today’s Mercury transit, the key significance of the Rudolphine Tables is that they led Kepler to predict a Mercury transit would occur on 7 November 1631. Other transit observations had been claimed in the past – including once by Kepler in 1607 – but were almost certainly sunspots instead. In this case, astronomers had time to prepare, and Pierre Gassendi spotted the planet as predicted during a break in cloudy weather.
Gassendi’s observation was a striking confirmation of how astronomical theory was becoming precise enough to predict even a small and brief event far in advance. By the time Johannes Hevelius documented another Mercury transit three decades later, he could compare six sets of astronomical tables and note that two including Kepler’s had successfully predicted the event. This revolution in accuracy was possible not from a single idea or individual but because a growing professional community, stretching across countries and generations, could compare, improve, and compete for observations whose quantity and precision would have been unimaginable when Walther and Pirckheimer looked out a Nuremberg window.
The other remarkable finding to come out of Gassendi’s Mercury transit observation was the planet’s shockingly small apparent size. He and other contemporaries grappled over why it was so much smaller than anyone expected before gradually coming to terms with its implications for cosmic dimensions.
Echoes of this recognition are part of what preserves the wonder of a Mercury transit even now when we can browse close-up images of the planet from orbiting spacecraft. No longer merely a point of light that’s difficult to spot near the horizon, we now know this tiny dot crossing the solar disc is an entire rocky world, orbiting the center of the solar system like us – and like us just a speck in the vast cosmic ocean.
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Mercury Transit of Sun on 9 May 2016
Here is a nice video of the event from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
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Mercury's Next Transit of the Sun on 11 November 2019
Here is a nice video of the event from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
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https://youtu.be/AhWMOkrzKzs~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mercury's Next Transit of the Sun on 11 November 2019
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And Mercury looks bigger than it actually is because it's so much closer to us (48 million miles) than is the sun (93 million miles). The ratio is nearly 2:1. Thus, Mercury appears twice as big as it really is in relation to the sun..
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