What are some prominent features of Mercury?

Mercury is a small planet, with an orbital diameter of about a third of our, located approximately two and three -quarters of light minutes from the Sun. It is about 1/20, mass and the volume of the ground, with a surface temperature of -292 to 806 ° F (-180 to 430 ° C), with maximum in Mercurian High noon and minima in craters near poles. It consists of 70% metal material and 30% silicate material, with a relatively large core consisting of molten iron.

Despite its small size, Mercury has been observed from the ground since ancient times because of its sunlight. With the release of Pluto as a planet, Mercury is the new smallest planet in the Solar System, although two months, Ganymede and Titan, are larger, but less massive.

The biggest secret of mercury is its large iron core, about 42% of its volume due to 17% of the country. There are different theory to explain it. The first is the theory based on an impact that states that at the beginning of historyThe solar system slammed into the planet's large planetimal and undressed most of its bark and cloak. The second is that when the sun initially formed from a prehistoric gas cloud, mercury in a super finished atmospheric envelope bathed, threw the surface material and expelled it as a solar wind. The third theory is that the projection of the protosolar nebula prevented lighter particles from growing into the planet of mercury and left it with mostly heavy elements. Future space missions will carefully observe Mercury and explore evidence of confirmation or refuting these theories that perform various predictions about its surface composition.

Because Mercury is too small and hot to contain a large part of the atmosphere, in the first days of the Solar System got serious beating, when it was much more vicious rocks than today. This event is called late heavy bombing, and covered Mercury's surface in craters. Soon volcanism contributed to the creation of a small Maria or a smooth plains, as they are on the moon today.

inThe details of the Mercury area we know thanks to Mariner 10, the robotic probe sent to the planet's orbit in 1974. Mariner 10 is assumed that the sun is still orbiting the mercury every few months.

In 2008, the Messenger spacecraft gets Mercury, which will give us more information about this very small, very hot planet.