Planets

Mercury
Mercury's orbit is highly eccentric; at perihelion it is only 46 million km from the Sun but at aphelion
it is 70 million. The position of the perihelion precesses around the Sun at a very
slow rate. 19th century astronomers made very careful observations of Mercury's
orbital parameters but could not adequately explain them using Newtonian
mechanics. The tiny differences between the observed and predicted values were
a minor but nagging problem for many decades. It was thought that another
planet (sometimes called Vulcan) slightly closer to the Sun than Mercury might
account for the discrepancy. But despite much effort, no such planet was found.
The real answer turned out to be much more dramatic: Einstein's General
Theory of Relativity! Its correct prediction of the motions of Mercury was an
important factor in the early acceptance of the theory.

Venus
Venus' rotation is somewhat unusual in that it is both very slow (243 Earth days per
Venus day, slightly longer than Venus' year) and retrograde. In addition, the periods
of Venus' rotation and of its orbit are synchronized such that it always presents the
same face toward Earth when the two planets are
at their closest approach. Whether this is a
resonance effect or merely a coincidence is not
known.

Mars
Mars' orbit is significantly elliptical. One result of this is a temperature variation of
about 30 C at the subsolar point between aphelion and perihelion.
This has a major influence on Mars' climate. While the average
temperature on Mars is about 218 K (-55 C, -67 F), Martian surface
temperatures range widely from as little as 140 K (-133 C, -207 F) at
the winter pole to almost 300 K (27 C, 80 F) on the day side during
summer