I have a strange hunch that there's some more material or previous work
that goes along with this question, which you haven't included here.
I can't easily find the dates of Mercury's extremes, but here's some of the
other data you're looking for:
Distance at Aphelion (point in it's orbit that's farthest from the sun):
<span><span><span><span><span>69,816,900 km
0. 466 697 AU</span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
<span>
Distance at Perihelion
(</span></span><span>point in it's orbit that's closest to the sun):</span>
<span><span><span><span>46,001,200 km
0.307 499 AU</span> </span>
Perihelion and aphelion are always directly opposite each other in
the orbit, so the time between them is 1/2 of the orbital period.
</span><span>Mercury's Orbital period = <span><span>87.9691 Earth days</span></span></span></span>
1/2 (50%) of that is 43.9845 Earth days
The average of the aphelion and perihelion distances is
1/2 ( 69,816,900 + 46,001,200 ) = 57,909,050 km
or
1/2 ( 0.466697 + 0.307499) = 0.387 098 AU
This also happens to be 1/2 of the major axis of the elliptical orbit.
The scheme whereby occupants in a pair of shuttles is as follows
use a strong cable with large weight on the end
Then use the orbital naneuvering system(OMS) to set the whole work as spinning about their common center of gravity.
A nebula is gas, dust, and other things that form and form some sort of clould like thing. It also looks cool because of the colors it produces. I'm sure you could do a web search to find more about it, I don't take astronomy hahaha
