Mercury

By Mia

Facts about Mercury

• Discovered By Known by the Ancients
• Date of Discovery Unknown
• Mercury speeds around the sun every 88 days, traveling through space at nearly 50 km (31 miles) per second -- faster than any other planet. One Mercury solar day equals 175.97 Earth days.

More facts about Mercury

• Temperatures on Mercury's surface can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius). Because Mercury's atmosphere is so thin, the surface cannot retain that heat so nighttime temperatures can drop to -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-179 degrees Celsius).

Murcury !!!

• Mercury's surface resembles that of Earth's Moon, scarred by many impact craters resulting from collisions with meteoroids and comets. While there are areas of smooth terrain, there are also lobe-shaped scarps or cliffs, some hundreds of miles long and soaring up to a mile high, formed by contraction of the crust. The Caloris Basin, one of the largest features on Mercury, is about 1,550 km (960 miles) in diameter. It was the result of an asteroid impact on the planet's surface early in the solar system's history. Over the next several billion years, Mercury shrank in radius about 1 to 2 km (0.6 to 1.2 miles) as the planet cooled after its formation. The outer crust contracted and grew strong enough to prevent magma from reaching the surface, ending the period of volcanic activity.

Even more facts about Murcury

• 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.

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