Mercury (Planet)

Mercury is the closest planet to The Sun, but it is not the hottest planet, the hottest planet is Venus, the second closest planet. Venus, unlike Mercury, has a thick atmosphere that traps heat, whereas Mercury's thin atmosphere prevents it from reaching the temperatures you get on Venus. Mercury has an atmosphere but is very small and not noticeable like the other rocky planets.

Mercury is a pock-marked planet with craters showing signs of impact. It appears similar to our Moon, and its craters are similar to Earth's.

Mercury is the smallest of all planets now that Pluto has been downgraded from planet status. The planet has a highly elliptical path, meaning it could get nearly twice as far from the Sun as its closest point.

Closest Planet

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. It is more akin to the Moon than it is to our planet. Mercury is baked by the extreme heat, which is unsurprising because it is close to the Sun.

Even though Mercury is the closest to the Sun, light from the Sun is not instantaneous. It takes light 2.5 mins or thereabouts to arrive from the Sun to the planet. If you could stand on the planet and observe the light, you would see what it looked like 2.5 minutes ago. N.A.S.A.

Mercury is not just the closest planet to the Sun. It is also the closest planet to all the planets in the solar system due to its path and how often the planet is close. Scientists calculated this and wrote about it in 2019. ExtremeTech

There is not much interest there other than sending a few satellites s to scan over the planet. The Mercury Messenger took seven years to reach the planet because of the planet's path. It had to fly by Venus and sometimes past Mercury before it could be in orbit around the planet.

Using information from the Messenger, such as the planets gravity and how it wobbled on its path, it was able to determine the core of the planet. It was determined that the planet's core is 85% of the planet, which is considerably higher than Earths.

Origins of Mercury

Chemicals such as sulphur were discovered on Mercury. Sulphur is a chemical that reacts to heat and burns away quickly. Such high concentrations of sulphur led scientists to think that the planet was created further out, out as far as Mars possible.

In the beginning, when everything was being made, it is theorized that some large new planetoid object collided with Mercury. Mercury was sufficiently strong enough not to be destroyed. However, the crust and mantle were depleted.

Is there Life on Mercury

Mercury is a bleak planet, closest to the Sun, with no permanent atmosphere which could support life. It might have the highest percentage of oxygen in its atmosphere compared to all the other planets, but it is freezing and is blasted by the Sun's rays, so life could not exist there.

Temperature on Mercury

Mercury's temperatures range wildly from a high of over 400 degrees to minus 160 degrees in the dark. Mercury has a magnetic field, but one that is inferior to that of Earth, one that could not provide the shielding for life to exist.

There is no appetite for having any base on the planet because of its temperature in the daytime. Could a man land on the planet, only on the dark side of the planet, shielded from the extreme heat? They would have difficulty getting to the planet because of the intense radiation from the Sun blasting them. It would be a one-way trip. The only reason to do it is to say that they were the first and possibly the only person on Mercury. There will always be someone who would want to visit and be the first man or woman on the planet.

Orbit and Year

A day on Mercury is longer than a year, so you would have a whole year and more waiting for the day to end. Being the nearest to the Sun, it has the shortest calendar year of all the planets.

Mercury's Moons

Mercury is one of two planets in the solar system with no moons. The other planet is Venus. The reason is that the planet is too close to the Sun, and Mercury has insufficient gravity to keep hold of any Moon.

Mercury may have had a moon in the early The Solar System but it doesn't now. We would be unable to find out because there would be no evidence around.

Why is Mercury not pulled into the Sun?

Mercury is tiny compared to its neighbour, the Sun. The Sun's mass has such a gravitational force that anything nearby would be pulled into it, right? That would be true if the object were static, but Mercury is not. It is moving, orbiting the Sun. If the planet stopped moving, then maybe the planet could fall into the Sun, but that is impossible.

Take the motorcyclists who drive around those cylinders but do not fall in. It is all to do with movement as in this YouTube Wall of Death. Movement is stronger than gravity; gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces. The minute they stop on the side of the wall, they fall because there is no movement to overpower gravity.

How come then that Comets are pulled into the Sun when they fly past. They fly too close to the stars in Event Horizon, where gravity can overcome motion and pull the object into it. Mercury is not close enough to the Event Horizon to be affected.