Ian
priscilla 1Image From Mercury Orbit
May 23rd 2011 02:20
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 88 Earth days. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits. Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun is only 28.3°. Since Mercury is normally lost in the glare of the Sun, unless there is a solar eclipse it can be viewed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere only in morning or evening twilight.
Mercury is similar in appearance to the Moon: it is heavily cratered with regions of smooth plains, has no natural satellites and no substantial atmosphere. However, unlike the Moon, it has a large iron core, which generates a magnetic field about 1% as strong as that of the Earth. It is an exceptionally dense planet due to the large relative size of its core. Surface temperatures range from about 90 to 700 K (-183 C to 427 C).
This historic image below is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. As taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft.
Click to enlarge
*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for Mercury (planet)
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