Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to orbit the sun.

Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM Plus, the situation doesn’t get any easier once you’re near Mercury. There’s no atmosphere to help a spacecraft slow down like there is at Venus or Mars.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Jamie Carter is an award-winning reporter who covers the night sky. A few evenings ago I found myself in a remote layby in Utah close to ...

The two orbiters will collaborate to investigate Mercury’s origin and evolution and its internal structure, geological features, composition, and craters. They will also study its atmosphere ...

Mercury's surface can reach a blistering 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) during the day, according to NASA. But the planet lacks an atmosphere to hold that heat in — so, on Mercury ...

How hot is Mercury? Mercury's sun-facing side is scorched by temperatures of around 430°C, hot enough to melt lead. Without a substantial atmosphere to distribute heat away from the areas facing the ...

Those ions continuously strip Mercury's atmosphere, but Mercury has a way to keep regenerating that atmosphere with material from its own surface. Finally, Mercury, despite being in the hottest ...

The layers of gases surrounding the surface of a planet make up what is known as an atmosphere. The atmospheres of the terrestrial planets range from thin to thick. Mercury has almost no atmosphere.

Envirotech Online is offering you the chance to dive into the world of mercury monitoring with free on-demand lectures. These ...