Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system. Mercury
is named after the Roman messenger god, the fastest Roman god, Mercury. This is
because Mercury is the fastest planet to orbit the Sun. Mercury is also the
closest planet to the Sun, about 35,983,047 miles (57,909,100 km) away from the
Sun. Mercury orbits the Sun in just 88 Earth days. Interestingly enough, one
day on Mercury is 59 Earth days. So for a little over half of Mercury's orbit
around the Sun is one total day. Mercury is slightly bigger than Earth's moon
and it would take more than 18 Mercury's to total one Earth. Mercury's radius
is 1,516 miles (2440 Km).Compare Mercury and Earth's moon, Mercury would be
much heavier. Although Mercury has a rocky surface, like that of our moon, deep
inside Mercury is a heavy material. According to NASA it is probably iron.
Mercury's surface is, once again, like that of Earth's moon, filled with impact
craters. Mercury barely has an atmosphere because it is so close to the Sun.
During the day the surface can get up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit, that is really
hot, but that still does not make Mercury the hottest planet in our solar
system, Venus takes that role.
Above: A color image
of Mercury's giant Caloris Basin recorded during MESSENGER's first flyby on
Jan. 14, 2008.
However, Mercury's craters can experience temperatures as
low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. This means there is a possibility that ice
could be at the poles of Mercury because the sunlight never reaches the poles.
The reason why is because Mercury's axis never tilts so the Sun never gets high
at Mercury's poles. According to this source, it seems strange for a planet
that gets so hot to have ice. That is an interesting fact that many people do
not know about the planet. This source also says that Mercury can get up to 800
degrees Fahrenheit. Since Mercury has basically no atmosphere, the temperature
fluctuates drastically from 800 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 300 degrees. My, as
well as many others, questions are, why explore Mercury? Why is that planet so
important? Well Mercury is important because it used to be a very elusive
planet. The Hubble space telescope was never able to get a picture of the
planet because the light overwhelms the Hubble. The Hubble will never be able
to view Mercury. So even though we discovered Mercury thousands of years ago,
we knew very little about the planet's features. And being human, we are
curious about everything. In 1974 we launched the first robotic telescope
called the Mariner 10. It was only able to get pictures of half the surface of
Mercury and no other spacecraft was able to fly by mercury for another 30
years. That left us with only half of the planet's physical features we know
about. In 2004, August, a space telescope named MESSENGER was launched into
orbit, on its way to the planet Mercury. In 2008 and 2009 MESSENGER arrives at
Mercury and begins its first flyby of the planet taking high definition
pictures and more. MESSENGER also collected data on the composition of the
surface rocks and discovered that Mercury has an Iron core. In 2011 MESSENGER
began its orbit around Mercury. MESSENGER will let people learn about Mercury
in a way that we never have before.
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