mercury
by kimberly bravo
what is mercury
Mercury is the smallest and closest to the sun of the eight planets in the solar system, with an orbital period about 88 earth days. Seen from Earth, it appears to move around its orbit in about 116 days, which is much faster than any other planet. It has no known natural satellites The planet is named after the roman deity mercury, the messenger to the gods.
what is mercury made of?
mercury is a terrestrial planet.
mercury is a rocky planet with a huge iron core.The core takes up nearly 3/4 of the planets diameter (75%).mercury has lots of dents (craters) mercury is a solid planet primarily made of iron also is a little bigger than earths moon
stuff to know
mercury's axis
Mercury's axis has the smallest tilt of any of the Solar System's planets (about 1⁄30 of a degree), but it has the largest orbital eccentricity. As such it does not experience seasons in the same way as most other planets such as Earth
how far is mercury from the sun?
mercury is 35,980,000 miles away from the sun it is the closest planet to the sun even though it is the second smallest out of the solar system
length of year,days
mercury's length of a day is around 58 days (58 days 15 hours and 30 minutes). mercury's length of a year is 88 days.
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mercury's tempature
mercury's surface experiences the greatest tempature variation of all the planets ranging from 100k (-173*c to -280*f) at night. In the day it can get up to 700 k (427*c to 800*f) because it has almost no atmosphere to retain heat.
interesting facts about mercury
Mercury has virtually no atmosphere and rotates very slowly in relationship to the sun. A single day on Mercury is as long as almost 60 Earth days. As a result of its long day and little atmosphere, Mercury has some wild extremes in temperature
facts
Mercury is much smaller than Earth. It's actually a lot closer to the size of Earth's moon. It has a shorter year, but a much longer day. There is no air to breathe.Since Mercury is close to the Sun, it is very difficult to send a space craft to explore the planet. The gravity from the sun is constantly pulling on the space craft causing the ship to need lots of fuel in order to stop or slow down at Mercury
mercury
The bright light of the Sun makes it nearly impossible to see Mercury.Mercury has a huge crater called the Caloris Basin. The impact that caused this crater was so huge that it formed hills on the other side of the planet
mercury facts
There is evidence that the planet Mercury has been known since 3000 BC by civilizations such as the Sumerians and Babylonians.Mercury orbits the Sun faster than any other planet.Early Greek astronomers thought it was two planets. They called the one they saw at sunrise Apollo and the one they saw at sunset Hermes.
fun facts
Mercury completes three rotations about its axis and up until 1965 it was thought that the same side of Mercury constantly faced the Sun. Thirteen times a century Mercury can be observed from the earth passing across the face of the Sun in an event called a transit, the next will occur on the 9th May 2016.
fun facts
Owing to its proximity to the Sun, Mercury is a difficult planet to visit. During 1974 and 1975 Mariner 10 flew by Mercury three times, during this time they mapped just under half of the planet’s surface. On August 3rd 2004, the Messenger probe was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, this was the first spacecraft to visit since the mid 1970’s.
Mercury has just 38% the gravity of Earth, this is too little to hold on to what atmosphere it has which is blown away by solar winds. However while gases escape into space they are constantly being replenished at the same time by the same solar winds, radioactive decay and dust caused by micrometeorites
As the iron core of the planet cooled and contracted, the surface of the planet became wrinkled. Scientist have named these wrinkles, Lobate Scarps. These Scarps can be up to a mile high and hundreds of miles long.
Unlike many other planets which “self-heal” through natural geological processes, the surface of Mercury is covered in craters. These are caused by numerous encounters with asteroids and comets. Any crater larger than 250 kilometres in diameter is referred to as a Basin. The Caloris Basin is the largest impact crater on Mercury covering approximately 1,550 km in diameter and was discovered in 1974 by the Mariner 10 probe.