Conceptual Physics (12th Edition)

Published by Addison-Wesley
ISBN 10: 0321909100
ISBN 13: 978-0-32190-910-7

Chapter 36 - Think and Explain - Page 698-699: 30

Answer

See below.

Work Step by Step

First, Mercury is small enough that it just appears as a dot crossing the disk of the sun, so measuring whether or not sunlight was bent is too difficult an experiment to carry out. There is too much background glare. Second, that discussion doesn't even matter because the mass of Mercury is far too small to observe the effect even under ideal conditions. Light doesn't appreciably bend when it passes by Mercury. This is discussed on page 690.
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