Interesting Facts About Mercury 2

07 Jun, 2024

Level: Intermediate

Total vocabularies: 140

Minutes to read: 2

Topic: Space

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Did you know that Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun ?

Because it's so close, Mercury orbits the Sun faster than any other planet .

A year on Mercury is just 88 Earth days long!

This means if you lived on Mercury , you would have a birthday every 88 days.

Mercury is also the smallest planet in our solar system.

It's slightly larger than Earth's moon but way smaller than Earth .

Despite its small size, Mercury has a very dense iron core .

This core makes up about 85% of the planet's radius .

These craters are from impacts with comets and asteroids over billions of years.

One of the largest craters is called Caloris Basin .

It is about 960 miles (1550 kilometers) wide!

Mercury doesn't have an atmosphere like Earth does.

This means there's no air to breathe and no weather like rain or snow.

During the day, it can get as hot as 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius).

At night, it can drop to -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius).

Because of these extremes, it would be very hard to live on Mercury .

Mercury has been visited by spacecraft , like NASA's MESSENGER .

These missions help us learn more about this fascinating planet .

So, the next time you look at the night sky, think about how Mercury is zooming around the Sun , full of surprises!