Temperatures on the Surface of Mercury Are Seen to Fluctuate

question 100

Multiple Choice

Temperatures on the surface of Mercury are seen to fluctuate between very cold 100 K (-173°C) and extremely hot 700 K (427°C) . What does this measurement indicate about conditions on Mercury?

• A) Mercury has a very elliptical orbit, and varying distance from the Sun produces these large temperature fluctuations because intensity varies as the inverse square of the distance from the Sun.
• B) The planet has an atmosphere in which the greenhouse effect captures solar radiation to heat the sunlit hemisphere of the planet.
• C) The planet is close to the Sun, has no atmosphere to maintain heat from the Sun, and is rotating slowly.
• D) Erupting volcanoes occasionally heat the planet's surface to extreme temperatures.

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Definitions:

Standard Deviations

A statistic that quantifies the dispersion or variability of a distribution, measuring how spread out the numbers are from the mean.

Degrees of Freedom

The volume of independent values or figures that may be assigned within a statistical distribution.

Standard Error

A statistical measure that quantifies the amount of variability in the sampling distribution of a statistic, often used to estimate the accuracy of sample means.

Sample Means

The average value obtained from a sample, used as an estimate of the population mean.