Word: orbited
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...they continued their study of the flood of data from Mariner 10 at week's end, the champagne-sipping scientists were elated by the spacecraft's performance. They now think that Mariner may have enough fuel left when it again crosses Mercury's orbit in September to guide the ship over one of the planet's poles, which were hidden from view during last week's flyby...
Tiny Pebbles. At the time of the formation of the rock, the moon had just been created, possibly by the accretion of debris in orbit around the earth. As the debris-drawn by lunar gravity and ranging in size from tiny pebbles to huge boulders many miles across-crashed into the enlarging moon, it eventually generated enough heat to turn the lunar surface into a sea of molten lava. Slowly, as the bombardment lessened, the lava cooled and hardened into a crust that was then cratered by the impact of the remaining debris. When the rain of rocks eventually ended...
...geological traces of the planet's violent beginnings. In contrast, the moon has remained largely unchanged since its last burst of volcanism, disturbed only by an occasional meteorite or a periodic moonquake (caused by the gravitational tug of the earth or sun as the moon's lopsided orbit occasionally brings the moon closer to them...
Once the black hole was positioned in a permanent orbit around the earth, its gravity could be tapped. From a distance of 100 yds. or so-far enough away to avoid being drawn into the black hole -an automatic firing mechanism on a spacecraft orbiting near by would aim tiny pellets of matter at it. Almost any material would do. As each pellet plunged toward the black hole, it would be squeezed and heated by the gravitational field to tremendously high temperatures, perhaps 100 million degrees...
...Lopsided Orbit. Usually obscured by the bright glare of the sun, Mercury remains almost as much a mystery as the most distant planet, Pluto. Half again as large as the moon, Mercury may be almost twice as dense. Traveling in a lopsided orbit, it comes as close to the sun as 29 million miles, then sweeps as far away as 43 million miles. To anyone standing on Mercury's surface, the sun would seem to stand still at times, then move backward briefly, in the Mercurian sky. Another oddity: Mercury's trip around the sun takes 88 earth...