30 Mind Blowing Facts About Mercury

Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. Mercury was named after the Roman God of Commerce and Thievery. It may have gotten its name from the speed with which it appears and disappears from earth’s view. Mercury is the second-smallest planet in the solar system, with Pluto being the smallest. Mercury, a planet, is smaller than Ganymede, a Jupiter-revolving natural satellite.

1. If you want plenty of birthdays, the best planet to live on is Mercury. A year lasts only 88 years, so when you’re ten on earth, you would be forty-one and a half on Mercury. Plus, instead of living 80 years on earth, you would live 332 on this hot and cold planet.
2. A full day on Mercury lasts longer than its year! A day on Mercury lasts for 176 Earth days or about six earth months.
3. The temperatures on Mercury get as hot as 801 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius). This is enough hot to melt lead.
4. Even though Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, temperatures can reach minus 300 degrees F. Why? Since Mercury has almost no atmosphere, there is nothing to trap heat near the surface. So, the dark side of Mercury, which doesn’t get sunlight, is very cold.
5. Mercury doesn’t have any moon. The other planet in our solar system that does not have any moon is Venus.
6. Despite being closest to the sun, Mercury is not the hottest planet. The hottest planet is Venus (at 462 Celsius). Mercury is on the 2nd spot.
7. Even though it is closest to the Sun, Mercury has ice in its craters.
8. The evening star is actually a planet, which is usually Mercury or Venus when seen in the western sky just after sunset.
9. Twice during Mercury’s orbit, it gets so close to the sun and speeds so much that the sun seems to go backward in the sky.
10. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit.
11. On Mercury during the day, the sun rises, stops, about-turns, and eventually sets where it rose.
12. On Mercury, a day (the time it takes for it to spin round once) is 59 Earth days. Its year (the time it takes to orbit the sun) is 88 days- that means there are fewer than two days in a year!
13. It is suspected that 80 percent of Mercury’s core is iron-nickel, as compared with earth’s 32 percent.
14. If you were standing on Mercury, the sun would appear 2.5 times larger than it appears from the earth.
15. Astronomers once believed a planet named Vulcan existed between Mercury and the Sun.
16. When the sun becomes a red giant in 6 billion years, it’ll eat Mercury and Venus. Earth gets scorched but may survive.
17. According to scientists, Gold exists on Mercury, and Mars, and Venus.
18. The smallest planet in our solar system is Mercury. Its circumference is approx. 15,329 Km. Whereas the circumference of earth is 40,075 km.
19. There have been only two missions on Mercury. The first one is the Mariner 10, which was launched on November 3, 1973, and the second one is the Messenger that was launched on August 3, 2004. The third one is on its way!
20. The third mission to Mercury is the BepiColombo and was successfully launched on October 20, 2018. It is scheduled to enter orbit around Mercury in December 2025. Its main mission will last until May 2027.
21. To reach Mercury, it actually takes more energy for a spacecraft to reach planet mercury than to reach Pluto.
22. Mercury revolves around the sun at 48 kilometers per second.
23. Mercury has a thin exosphere instead of an atmosphere. The exosphere is composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium.
24. Mercury has a magnetic field but is very weak. The spacecraft measured it to be as 1.1% than that of earth’s magnetic field.
25. Thus mercury axis is very little tilted, so it does not have any seasons.
26. Mercury consists of approximately 70% metallic and 30% silicate material.
27. The surface gravity of Mercury is 3.7 m/s2. This is equivalent to 38% of earth’s gravity (0.38g). This means that if you weighed 100 kg on earth, you would weigh 38kg on Mercury.
28. Mercury is named after the Greek god Hermes who is the god of commerce, Messenger of the gods, the mediator between gods and mortals. When the name Hermes translates to Latin, it means Mercurius.
29. Mercury has more craters marks than any other planet. This is due to the fact that there is no water or rain on Mercury which could erode the impact marks.
30. Mercury is the second densest planet in our solar system. Earth is the densest.