Mercury (planet)

Mercury is the first planet from the Sun and the smallest in the Solar System. In English, it is named after the Roman god Mercurius (Mercury), god of commerce and communication, and the messenger of the gods. Mercury is classified as a terrestrial planet, with roughly the same surface gravity as Mars. The surface of Mercury is heavily cratered, as a result of countless impact events that have accumulated over billions of years. Its largest crater, Caloris Planitia, has a diameter of 1,550 km (960 mi) and one-third the diameter of the planet (4,880 km or 3,030 mi). Similarly to the Earth's Moon, Mercury's surface displays an expansive rupes system generated from thrust faults and bright ray systems formed by impact event remnants.

Mercury's sidereal year (88.0 Earth days) and sidereal day (58.65 Earth days) are in a 3:2 ratio. This relationship is called spin–orbit resonance, and sidereal here means "relative to the stars". Consequently, one solar day (sunrise to sunrise) on Mercury lasts for around 176 Earth days: twice the planet's sidereal year. This means that one side of Mercury will remain in sunlight for one Mercurian year of 88 Earth days; while during the next orbit, that side will be in darkness all the time until the next sunrise after another 88 Earth days.

Combined with its high orbital eccentricity, the planet's surface has widely varying sunlight intensity and temperature, with the equatorial regions ranging from −170 °C (−270 °F) at night to 420 °C (790 °F) during sunlight. Due to the very small axial tilt, the planet's poles are permanently shadowed. This strongly suggests that water ice could be present in the craters. Above the planet's surface is an extremely tenuous exosphere and a faint magnetic field that is strong enough to deflect solar winds. Mercury has no natural satellite.

As of the early 2020s, many broad details of Mercury's geological history are still under investigation or pending data from space probes. Like other planets in the Solar System, Mercury was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Its mantle is highly homogeneous, which suggests that Mercury had a magma ocean early in its history, like the Moon. According to current models, Mercury may have a solid silicate crust and mantle overlying a solid outer core, a deeper liquid core layer, and a solid inner core. There are many competing hypotheses about Mercury's origins and development, some of which incorporate collision with planetesimals and rock vaporization.

As an inferior planet, Mercury is visible only as a "morning star" or "evening star" near the Sun, posing challenges for Earth observations. Further, it is difficult to send spacecraft from Earth to Mercury, because reaching the planet requires the greatest change in a spacecraft's velocity out of all Solar System's planets. Only three spacecraft have flown past Mercury as of 2024: Mariner 10 (first flyby in 1974), MESSENGER (2008) and BepiColombo (2021).