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