A fighter pilot is one of those elite men who has been selected to fly sleek, sexy, supersonic aircraft in dazzling aerial combat, as well as put on cool airshows and pose for photographs. Only the best pilots in the world get to be fighter pilots. The rest fly slow, heavy, ugly aircraft used to haul rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, or worse, Detroit. Typically, fighter pilots wear elaborate uniforms which they claim are specially designed to be fireproof to protect them in case of an emergency. In actuality, however, the uniforms are made of a special type of cloth which repels beer stains.
A global view of Mercury, as seen by MESSENGER. Credit: NASA. Mercury sure is hot, but Venus is hotter. Venus is much further from the Sun, orbiting at a distance of more than 108 million kilometers. Average temperature there is a hellish 735 Kelvin, or 462 degrees Celsius â hot enough to melt lead. Venus imaged by Magellan Image Credit: NASA/JPL.
It was once believed that a planet called Vulcan existed between the orbit of Mercury and the Sun â however the existence of such a planet was never found. The orbit of Mercury is an ellipse rather than circular. It has the most eccentric orbit in the solar system and the least circular of all of the planets, according to scientists and astronomers. Mercury is only the second hottest planet. Venus, though farther from the Sun than Mercury, actually experiences higher temperatures. This is because Mercury has no atmosphere to regulate temperature and results in the most extreme temperature change of all the planets â ranging from -170Â°C (-280Â°F) during the night to 430Â°C (800Â°F) during the day.