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Journalism of Courage
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) took to Instagram to share a stunning image of the smallest planet in the solar system, Mercury, on Monday.
The image of Mercury was captured by MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to ever orbit the planet. NASA said in the image, Mercury appears tan and several shades of blue, with craters marking the surface, allowing scientists to examine the geological features.
NASA posted a detailed caption and provided many interesting facts about the smallest planet.
“Slightly larger than Earth’s Moon, Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, and is the closest to the Sun at an average of 36 million miles (58 million km) away. While Mercury may be the smallest planet, it is also the speediest, traveling in its orbit at almost 29 miles (47 km) per second, making a year on Mercury just 88 Earth days,” it wrote.
“Instead of an atmosphere, Mercury has a thin exosphere composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium. Due to its lack of atmosphere and proximity to the Sun, daytime and night time on Mercury swing dramatically in temperature ranging from 800ºF (430ºC) during the day to -290 ºF (-180 ºC) at night. Mercury’s comparatively weak magnetic field compared to Earth, at just 1% strength of our own, interacts with solar winds creating magnetic tornados that tear across the planet’s surface,” it said further.
“Mercury: I am the smallest planet in the solar system. Pluto: am I a joke to you?” a person commented. “I thought we call him Fredie Mercury!” said another. “So being the closest to the sun yet gets colder at night than on earth?” wrote a third.
