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