Did you know? Mercury has the shortest year of all the planets in our solar system, with just 88 days.
Interesting, isn’t it? With so many things happening on Earth, we often forget how awesome other planets in our solar system are. So, In this post, we are gonna go through 10 Mind-Blowing Mercury facts that will help you realize how cool and awesome Mercury is.
Interesting Facts about Mercury
1. Mercury is the tiniest planet in our solar system. Its diameter currently measures just over 3,000 miles, and is slightly larger than Earth’s Moon.
2. The planet Mercury is named after the messenger of the Roman gods, Hermes.
3. Mercury also has the honor of being the closest planet to the Sun.
4. With a speed of 29 miles (47 kilometers) per second, Mercury is the fastest planet in our solar system. Since it is fast and closest to Sun, Mercury has the shortest year of all the planets in our solar system, with just 88 days.
5. Despite mercury being the closest plan to the Sun, it’s only the second hottest planet, whereas Venus is actually the hottest one.
Fun Facts about Mercury
6. Mercury is one of the five original planets, along with Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, which you can enjoy watching from Earth with the naked eye.
7. Mercury, along with Venus, is the only planet in our Solar System with no moons.
8. Mercury has a very thin exosphere, which is traditionally the outermost layer of a planet’s atmosphere.
This exosphere is made of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium, all whipped up from the planet’s surface by solar winds.
9. The lack of atmosphere and proximity to the sun makes Mercury a planet of extremes. The surface temperature can climb to 800 degrees Fahrenheit during the daytime, and fall to 290 degrees below zero at night.
10. Mercury is difficult to observe because it’s fleeting and so close to the sun. And so far, it’s only been visited by two spacecraft, NASA’s Mariner 10 and Messenger.
Those missions gave us much of what we know today, but future ventures are in the works with high hopes of revealing more of Mercury’s secrets.
Bonus fact:
Despite its tiny size, mercury is very dense because it’s composed mainly of heavy metals and rock. In fact, mercury is the second most dense planet in our solar system. And the densest planet happens to be Earth.
That’s it for this post guys, I hope you had fun while reading about 10 Awesome Moon facts for kids. And in case you’re interested in reading other articles:
25 Mind-Blowing Facts About Moon That You Probably Didn’t Know
15 Mind-Blowing Jupiter Facts That You Probably Didn’t Know
30 Mind-Blowing Space facts that will amaze you
25 Mind-Blowing facts about Earth that everyone must know
