Mercury

by Fraser Cain on April 29, 2008

Mercury

Mercury

Mercury, the first rock from the Sun(blatant rip-off). What do astronomers really know about a planet that is so distant from our own? A whole lot, actually. The writers and editors here at Universe Today decided to compile thousands of facts about Mercury into one simple page full of links to facilitate your research. Believe me, that will speed up your research time and cut down on some reading. WE also thought that you might want to see a few of the facts that are contained in the links, so here are a few to wet your appetite.

Did you know?

Only half of Mercury’s surface is hot. Since the planet does not have an atmosphere to trap the heat from the Sun near the surface, only the half of the planet facing the Sun is hot. The other is close to the same temperature as deep space.

There have been two different missions that have flown by Mercury, each numerous times. That last is scheduled to pass again in March of 2011. The European and Japanese space agencies are planning a new mission that will launch a planetary orbiter and a magnetosphere orbiter.

There are 166 known moons in our solar system. Mercury does not hold up its end, though. It has no moons. Scientists do theorize that it may have had an ancient moon that spiraled into the planet’s surface a few billion years ago.

These are just a few of the fun facts that you can find hidden amongst the links in the list below. Happy hunting and always remember to learn something new each day.

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. He's the forum co-administrator of the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum with Bad Astronomer Phil Plait.

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