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