Venus Solar System Mercury

Mercury is a small planet not much larger than our moon.

Venus solar system mercury.

It is the closest planet to the sun but it s actually not the hottest. Flying past venus en route to the first ever flyby of mercury mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to use a gravity assist to change its flight path in order to reach another planet. Despite its proximity to the sun mercury is not the hottest planet in our solar system that title belongs to nearby venus thanks to its dense atmosphere. Temperatures go up to 500 c when it faces the sun and 150 c on its dark side.

It s a little bigger than earth s moon. Venus does not have any moons a distinction it shares only with mercury among planets in the solar system. Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the solar system its orbit around the sun takes 87 97 days the shortest of all the planets in the solar system. Along with venus earth and mars mercury is one of the rocky planets.

Because they presumably formed in the solar nebula from the same kind of rocky planetary building blocks they also likely have similar overall chemical compositions early telescopic observations of the planet revealed a perpetual veil. Mercury is the smallest terrestrial planet in the solar system about a third the size of earth. It is named after the greek god hermes ερμής translated into latin mercurius mercury god of commerce messenger of the gods mediator between gods and mortals. Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called earth s sister planet because of their similar size mass proximity to the sun and bulk composition.

A bird s eye view of the north side of the inner solar system mercury venus earth and mars when mercury and venus are in conjunction as seen from earth on may 22 2020 at about 07 00 utc. The images used to create this view were acquired by mariner 10 on feb. Like venus mercury orbits the sun within earth s orbit as an. It s the hottest planet in our solar system even though mercury is closer to the sun.

It is radically different from earth in other respects. Venus has been called earth s twin because of the similarities in their masses sizes and densities and their similar relative locations in the solar system. Venus has crushing air pressure at its surface more than 90 times that of earth similar to the pressure you d encounter a mile below the ocean on earth. Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system.

It has a thin atmosphere which causes it to swing between burning and freezing temperatures. From the surface of mercury the sun would appear more than three times as large as it does when viewed from earth and the sunlight would be as much as seven times brighter. It has a solid surface that is covered with craters like our moon.