Magnificent Mercury
Written and Illustrated By Elizabeth Moore
Mercury and its Name
Did you know Mercury got its name from a roman god that brung messages to other gods? Mercury travels the sun quicker than any other planet. The roman god Mercury was known for his speed.
Days, Years and Temperatures
Size and Craters
Mercury has a lot of craters. The biggest crater is the Caloris Basin. It is eight hundred miles wide! The mountains around it are up to one mile high. The craters were made when meteorites and comets hit Mercury. Rocks flew up in the air and crashed down and made even more craters. Mercury is the second smallest planet, the first is Pluto. Mercury is made up of three layers. It has a large iron middle, a layer of liquid material, and a thin rocky crust. Mercury is one of the rocky planets. Its density is 5.4. Density is the measurement that tells the wait of something compared to its size.
Closest to the Sun
Mercury just like Earth travels in an elliptical orbit around the sun. Mercury’s average distance from the sun is 36 million miles! That is way less than Earth’s distance. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Since it’s so close to the sun, it gets lots of sunlight. You can see Mercury with your eyes right before sunrise in the eastern sky and right after sunset in the western sky. Mercury is a very interesting planet.