my weight on mars and mercury are the same, how?

Question

what does this tell you about the bulk compsotion of mars relative to that of mercury?

Answer 1

easy

you weigh the same because, while Mercury is a bit lighter (which would tend to make you weigh less), it is also a bit smaller (which would tend to make you weigh more).

as it happens, in the case of those two planets, the two opposite effects nearly exactly cancel each other. So you'd weigh the same on either of those two (that would be about 2.6x less than what you weigh on Earth).

if you do a quick mass vs. volume (i.e. density) for both, you'll find that Mercury is a good bit denser than Mars, about 1.4x denser (and about the same density as Earth).


Hope this helps

a

Answer 2

Well the gravity of mars and mercury are both .38 that of earth so I would assume you would weigh the same on each planet.

Answer 3

Don't know where you're getting your faulty information, but your weight on Mars would be more than doulble your weight on the Moon:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/index.html

Mars' mass is about 8 times that of the Moon, but has nearly double the radius. Since gravity is inversely proportional to radius squared, Mars' gravity is roughly double that of the Moon.

Answer 4

If that is true and the planets are of different volume then they are of different density too. In order for a smaller planet to have the same gravity as a larger one then it must have greater density.

Answer 5

Gravity????