By Megan Carlson, Kaya Hall,
Jacob McHugh, & Lilli
McCreery

• Mercury as named after the Roman god
Mercury
• It is the closest plant to the Sun
• Known about since ancient times
• Greeks called it Apollo as the morning star and
Hermes as the Evening star
Mercury god of trade

• Mercury rotates around the sun every
88 days
• Second slowest planet to rotate around the sun (Venus being the slowest)
• One day on Mercury lasts 176 earth days

• 58.6 Earth days

• Closest Planet to Sun
• Average distance from Sun: 57,910,000 km (36 million miles)

• Opposition (closest distance from Earth, but farthest from Sun): 77 million km (48 million miles)
• Farthest distance (opposite sides of Sun): 222 million km (138 million miles)

• Surface Area: 7.48 x 10 7 km 2 - 10.8% of Earth’s surface area
• Volume: 6.083 x 10 10 km 2 - 5.4% of Earth’s volume.
• Equatorial Diameter: 4,879 km (15,988,845 feet)

• Second smallest planet
• Some scientists believe it is shrinking due to its liquid core and rotation
• The rotation is cooling parts of the core
• Terrestrial Planet

• Second most dense
• Density: 5.427 g/cm 3 (Earth: 5.515 g/cm 3 )
• If gravitational compression was not taken into account, Mercury would be more dense
• Most density comes from core (42% of volume)

• Has a huge range in temperature
• Ranges from -168 o C – 428 o C (-270 o F – 800 o F)
• Daytime: temperatures rise very high (only Venus is hotter)
• Nighttime: thin atmosphere releases temperatures so it drops quickly

• Mercury isn’t very dense so it doesn’t have than much gravity
• It has a large core which is most likely partly molten and generates a magnetic field about 1% as strong as Earth’s
• Interior resembles that of Earth
• Has a rocky layer, called the mantle, beneath the crust and an iron core

• Planet is too small to hold down a normal atmosphere and the one it has is constantly being blown away; however, there is a very thin one
• Atmosphere consists of: hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium
• Atmospheric pressure at surface is 1 trillionth of
Earth’s

• There are no satellites orbiting
Mercury

• The smallest planet
• Brown
• Dry

• Rocky & crater-like
• Looks like the moon
• Has some plains & hills

• Its impossible!
• No water or living life

• Severe weather change
• Very icy
• Burning hot
• Lava eruptions on surface