Solar System Exploration: Planets: Mercury

Mercury:




	MESSENGER spacecraft images have revealed portions of Mercury never seen by human eyes.

Mercury in a Brief
Sun-scorched Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's Moon. Like the Moon, Mercury has very little atmosphere to stop impacts and it is covered with craters. Mercury's dayside is super heated by the Sun, but at night temperatures drop hundreds of degrees below freezing. Ice may even exist in craters. Mercury's egg-shaped orbit takes it around the Sun every 88 days.

Featured Mission: MESSENGER
During a series of flybys, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed more of Mercury than has ever been seen before. The spacecraft, the second to visit Mercury, will settle into orbit in March 2011.

Read More About Mercury

Metric | English | Scientific Notation

Distance from the Sun:

57,909,175 km

Equatorial Radius:

2,439.7 km

Volume:

60,827,200,000 km³

Mass:

330,220,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg

More Facts


	Mercury is an extreme planet: the smallest, the densest, the one with the oldest surface, the one with the largest daily variations in surface temperature, and the least explored. Mercury, like Earth, has a global internal magnetic field. Mars and Venus do not. Less than half of the surface of Mercury has been imaged by a spacecraft.

	Missions to Mercury
	World Book at NASA: Mercury

	Planetary Photojournal: Mercury
	Johns Hopkins University MESSENGER Mission Site
	Compare Mercury to other Planets/Moons