Mercury: The Tiny Planet with Big Surprises

This not-so-tiny planet is full of interesting facts. Despite being so close to our sun, it's surviving the immense heat like a champ. 

I know, this looks a lot like the moon, but that's usually how space rocks look. Mercury is slightly bigger than our moon, 1.4 times to be specific.

The Name

Mercury is named after one of the Five most important gods according to Roman belief, called the Messenger God. This is because this god was the fastest among the rest, and also because the said planet takes the least time to complete a full revolution around the Sun, approximately 88 earth days (earth takes 365.25 days for a complete revolution). Unfortunately, a day on mercury is equal to 59 earth days. If we talk about it in terms of hours.................Earth completes a day in 24 hours, Mercury completes a day in                  24 x 59 = 1416 hours.

Atmosphere

Mercury has no atmosphere, unlike many other planets in our solar system. There may be an Exosphere but that's a separate topic. This guy is the second densest planet in our galaxy, with a radius of roughly 2500km. And its inner core is metallic which is the main reason why it's so dense. 

Surface Temperature

Also, because the planet has no atmosphere to retain any heat, during the day the temperatures can reach up to 430 °C and at night, they can go as low as -180 °C.

There isn't much detailed information on Mercury as a planet, but more missions to the said celestial body could give us an insight into what other mysteries it is hiding.