Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and it is one of the few planets that can be seen in the night sky with the naked eye. It is still unknown who discovered Mercury first, but we can say with confidence that people have been observing this planet for thousands of years.
1. The first mention of Mercury dates back to Sumerian times around 3000 BC.
2. Mercury, like Venus, has no rings and no moons, because the planets are fairly close to the Sun.
3. A person who weighs 80 kg on Earth will weigh 30.4 kg on Mercury or 38% of your Earth’s weight.
4. If you lived on Mercury, you could celebrate the New Year every 88 Earth days.
5. One solar day (one full day-night cycle) on Mercury lasts 176 Earth days.
6. The diameter of Mercury is only 4,879 km, which makes it the smallest planet in the Solar System.
7. Although Mercury is very small, it has a very high density of 5440 kg/m3, second among planets only to the Earth (5520 kg/m3).
8. Mercury has wrinkled ridges on the surface. Scientists have found that the planet has been shrinking, based on deformations in the surface called lobate scarps and wrinkle ridges. They can be more than one and a half kilometers high and hundreds of kilometers long.
9. The orbit of Mercury is the most eccentric of the planets in our Solar System.
10. Despite the fact that Mercury is the closest to the Sun, it is not the hottest planet, Venus can have a higher average temperature. The temperature on the sunny side of Mercury reaches 427 ° C, but on the reverse side due to the absence of the atmosphere, it drops to -173 ° C.
11. The largest known crater on Mercury surface is Caloris Basin with a diameter of about one and a half thousand kilometers.
12. Unlike many other planets that “self-renew” due to natural geological processes, the surface of Mercury is covered by many impact craters as a result of collisions with meteoroids and comets and which makes it the most cratered planet in the Solar System.
