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The Planet Mercury
Mercury was named after the Roman god of profit and trade. It is the closest planet to the sun, and according to legend, Mercury is fast. In reality, the planet Mercury is very fast, orbiting the sun every 88 days making it the quickest planet in the solar system.
Nice however it is not. Since there is no real atmosphere there, the temperature during the day is a rather hot 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and goes down to about -300 degrees Fahrenheit. It has a rather strange elliptical orbit which would appear, if you where on the surface and survived not freezing at night, that the sun rises, then sets, then rises again.
Since there is no atmosphere, meteors do not burn up and so the planet looks very similar to our moon, with lots of craters. Can you figure out why Mercury rotates around the sun faster than any other planet in our solar system? Think about it for a bit and ask your teacher for help if you need to.
Did you know that Mercury travels about 40,000 miles per hour faster around the Sun than the Earth? Also, since it rotates very slowly, you would have to stay awake for about 176 days on Earth to equal 1 day on Mercury!
