Mercury
Mercury ☿
Mercury, named after the swiftest of the Roman gods due to the swiftness of its orbit, is the closest planet to the Sun at 35.98 million miles (0.39 Astronomical Units) away. It is so close that if you were to stand on Mercury's surface, the Sun would appear more than three times larger than it does from Earth's surface. It is the smallest planet in our solar system, only slightly larger than Earth's moon. It orbits the Sun faster than any other planet, taking just 88 Earth days to do so. However, due to the planet's extremely slow rotation, a day actually lasts twice as long as a year, with one rotation taking 176 Earth days.
(NASA)
Click the planet to see if it's visible tonight!
Find it on Google Street View! (Mercury is the first boulder from Albertus Magnus Hall)
