10 Things You Need to Know About Mercury

1. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system—only slightly larger than Earth’s Moon. 
2. It is the closest planet to the Sun at a distance of about 36 million miles (58 million kilometers) or 0.39 AU.
3. One day on Mercury (the time it takes for Mercury to rotate or spin once with respect to the stars) takes 59 Earth days. One day-night cycle on Mercury takes 175.97 Earth days. Mercury makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Mercury time) in just 88 Earth days.
   
4. Mercury is a rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet. Mercury has a solid, cratered surface, much like the Earth’s moon.
5. Mercury’s thin atmosphere, or exosphere, is composed mostly of oxygen (O2), sodium (Na), hydrogen (H2), helium (He), and potassium (K). Atoms that are blasted off the surface by the solar wind and micrometeoroid impacts create Mercury’s exosphere.
6. Mercury has no moons. 
7. There are no rings around Mercury. 
8. No evidence for life has been found on Mercury. Daytime Temperatures can reach 430 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit) and drop to -180 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit) at night. It is unlikely life (as we know it) could survive on this planet.
9. Standing on Mercury’s surface at its closest approach to the Sun, our star would appear more than three times larger than it does on Earth.
10. The two spacecraft of ESA-JAXA’s BepiColombo are en route to Mercury. NASA’s Mariner 10 was the first mission to explore Mercury. NASA’s MESSENGER was the first to orbit the innermost planet.