study of mercury

The planet Mercury was named by the Romans after Mercury, the god of commerce, travel and thievery because it moves so fast through the sky.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and because of this, it is very hot.(Temperatures on Mercury can range anywhere from 90 to 700 degrees)

It is a small rocky planet only slightly larger than our Moon. It also looks a lot like our Moon because it has lots of craters all over it.

Mercury also has huge cliffs on its surface some of which are a kilometre or two high and stretch out a long way.

Unlike many of the planets, Mercury doesn't have any moons.

You can see Mercury if you look for it through a pair of binoculars or even just by looking for it with your eyes, but it is often difficult to look at because it is so close to the Sun.

Due to its small angular separation from the Sun, which it orbits every 88 days