Mercury (planet) diagram on the right illustrates the effects of the eccentricity, showing Mercury's orbit overlaid with a circular orbit having the same semi-major axis. Mercury's higher velocity when it is near perihelion is clear from the greater distance it covers in each 5-day interval. In the diagram the varying distance of Mercury to the Sun is represented by the size of the planet, which is inversely proportional to Mercury's distance from the Sun. This varying distance to the Sun leads to Mercury's surface being flexed by tidal bulges raised by the Sun that are about 17 times stronger than the Moon's
Nearest neighbour distribution Nearest neighbour distribution In probability and statistics, a nearest neighbor function, nearest neighbor distance distribution, nearest-neighbor distribution function or nearest neighbor distribution is a mathematical function that is defined in relation to mathematical objects known as point processes, which are often used as mathematical models of physical phenomena representable as randomly positioned points in time, space or both. More specifically, nearest neighbor functions are defined with respect to some point in the point process as being the probability distribution of the distance from this point to its nearest neighboring point in the same point process, hence they are used to