A NASA space vehicle, New Messenger, has reached Mercury and is beaming back information to CSIRO's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. It has taken nearly seven years to get to the hot inner planet. A Mercury day is six Earth months long while its year is only 88 days.
There is no possibility of humans landing on this little planet as the temperature reaches 430 degrees. Its minimum is extreme as well, minus 180 degrees. The sun would look three times bigger than on Earth if you could stand on it surface and look at it that is.
An earlier exploratory vehicle, Marina 10, only gave a cursory look at the innermost planet. The whole planet is to be mapped this time. It will show whether there is ice at the poles. The sun never shines into pole craters. A mystery to be solved is why Mercury is composed mainly of metals.
There is no possibility of humans landing on this little planet as the temperature reaches 430 degrees. Its minimum is extreme as well, minus 180 degrees. The sun would look three times bigger than on Earth if you could stand on it surface and look at it that is.
An earlier exploratory vehicle, Marina 10, only gave a cursory look at the innermost planet. The whole planet is to be mapped this time. It will show whether there is ice at the poles. The sun never shines into pole craters. A mystery to be solved is why Mercury is composed mainly of metals.
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