Meet the author: Dr. Phil Plait is an astronomer, author, and science communicator with a PhD in astronomy at the University ...

It is rocky with a solid surface that is filled with craters. Mercury takes 59 Earth days to complete one rotation on its axis and 88 Earth days to complete one revolution around the Sun.

How can we successfully collect and return samples from Mercury and Venus to Earth? This is what a recent study presented at ...

Mercury’s is much weaker than Earth’s, but studying its geometry and origin—along with the planet’s surface features and composition—“offers a window into the processes of planet ...

Its radius, the distance from the core's centre to the surface, is 2,440 kilometres. Mercury is about 2.6 times smaller than Earth. How hot is Mercury? Mercury's sun-facing side is scorched by ...

The modelled observations yield a surface field of 230–290 nT that ... Assuming that the dynamos of Earth and Mercury have driving forces that scale similarly, Mercury's slow rotation (its ...

With a radius of 3,959 miles, Earth is the fifth largest planet in our solar system, and it's the only one known for sure to have liquid water on its surface. Earth is also unique in terms of ...