Mercury

Mercury - Venus - Earth - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto

Q: Did you ever taste the sun?
A: No, but I've heard it's outta this world!

Equatorial diameter: 4879.4km (0.383 Earths)

Mass: 3.302 x 1010 km2 (0.056 Earths)

Equatorial gravity: 3.701m/s2 (0.377 gee)

Named after: the Roman god commerce, travel and thievery

Orbital period: 88 Earth days

Star sign:

Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun.  It takes 88 Earth days to orbit the sun and is in similar appearance to the moon.  It is heavily crated and has no natural satellites

Because of it's closeness to the sun, temperatures are extremely high at 90-700K.

Mercury has an iron core which generates a magnetic field about 1% as strong as that of Earth's.

Mercury is in many ways similar to the moon as the surface is heavily crated (as well as some places very smooth) and very old, with no plate tectonics.  Mercury is the second densest major body in the solar system, after Earth.

Mercury has a very thin atmosphere consisting of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind.  Because mercury is so hot, these atoms quickly escape into space.  Therefore, different to Earth and Venus, whose atmosphere is stable, Mercury's is constantly being replenished.

Mercury has no known satellites.

A picture of Mercury

Did you hear about the astronaut who stepped on chewing gum?
He got stuck in Orbit!



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