Mercury related images

Mercury

The first planet in the Solar System, and also the smallest, is Mercury. Mercury's distance from the Sun ranges from 46 to 70 million kilometers. Mercury's orbit is the fastest of all the planets in our Solar System, taking only 88 days to complete a single orbit around the Sun. A single day on Mercury is equal to 58 Earth days.

Not much is known about the planet Mercury. Only two probes have visited Merury thus far, Mariner 10 in 1974-1975, and MESSENGER, in early 2008-Present.

Mariner 10 orbited the Sun in such a way that for every orbit it made, Mercury made two. Mariner 10 made two additional flybys of the planet, before it ran out of fuel. Unfortunately, as only one side of the planet was lit during the flybys, Mariner 10 was only able to photograph 45% of Mercury's surface.

On January 14th, 2008, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging), a NASA probe, made its first flyby of Mercury. On October 6th, 2008, it made a second, and then a third on September 29th, 2009. MESSENGER settled into orbit around Mercury on March 18th, 2011. The mission will end sometime in 2012, when the probe's fuel runs out. MESSENGER, during its first three flybys, collected enough information to produce images of over 95% of the planet's surface.

Mercury orbits very close to the Sun. This means that it has the largest temperature difference between day and night of all the planets in the Solar System. During the day the temperature on Mercury can reach 450°C, but because Mercury has barely any atmosphere, heat can't be held in at night and that means that the temperature can drop by over 600°C.

 

Distance from Sun	57,909,175 km 35,983,095 miles
Gravity	3.7 m/s² 12.1 ft/s²
Circumference	15,329 km 9,525 miles
Radius	2,439 km 1,516 miles
Mass	330,220,000,000,000,000, 000,000 kg
Surface Area	74,800,000 km² 28,900,000 miles²
Lengh of Day	1408 Earth hours
Length of Year	87.97 Earth days
Temperature Min/Max	-173/427 °C -279/801 °F
Atmosphere	No atmosphere