The planet closest to the Sun got its name in the ancient period. Mercury was a Roman god, patron of travelers and commerce. As well as a swift messenger of the gods. It is precisely for the speedy movement through the vault of heaven that the planet closest to the Sun - and it is the fastest body in our sky - got its name.
Key statements
This planet is closer to the Sun than the Earth is almost three times. The proximity of Mercury to its star determines its strongly elongated orbit and rapid rotation around it - in just 88 days. And this is twice as fast as the Earth’s rotation . Interestingly, the planet makes a revolution around its own axis in about 59 Earth days. It is too
due to the approach to the star and the force of its gravity, because the diameter of the planet is more than three times smaller than the earth, not to mention the mass. It turns out that Mercury day lasts two-thirds of the year here. Mercury has long been
the smallest planet in the earth's group, and after depriving Pluto of its status as a planet — which happened several years ago as scientists reconsidered this very concept — it even became the smallest planet in the solar system. Interestingly, it is even smaller than the
moons of Jupiter and Saturn - respectively, of Titan and Ganymede. Although the latter cannot be called planets. For a long time almost nothing was known about Mercury. Its full study was begun only during the space race of the Cold War. In 1973, the Mariner-10 apparatus was launched in the direction of this body, which received the first good pictures of the planet (along the way, “looking” closer at Venus).
Weather on the planet
Mercury actually has no atmosphere, however there is a small amount of gases we know: hydrogen, sodium, oxygen, argon, potassium and some others. Despite the fact that on most of its surface the planet closest to the Sun is real hell (the temperature here often reaches 400 degrees Celsius), there are also zones where the sun's rays never reach. Not so long ago, real water ice was discovered in some of the deep craters of the moon. Astrophysicists suggest that Mercury most likely also contains ice in craters located at its poles. The images obtained thanks to Mariner 10 demonstrated that the planet closest to the Sun is very similar in structure to the Moon: it is even more craterized. The entire surface is covered with long-crushed dark matter such as basalt. The most part of the body itself is iron - about 70%. Most likely, its core also consists of it. However, it seems that the planet closest to the Sun has long cooled inside and has no geological activity.
Further research
Today, a joint program is being developed by European and Japanese experts, within the framework of which in the next few years two spacecraft will be sent to Mercury, one of which will descend to the planet and will examine its surface and depths, and the other will study its magnetic field.