Object of the Month - Mercury
Mercury is the forgotten naked eye planet because most people have never seen it. It’s one of the least explored worlds in our solar system but in the few times we have visited, we’ve found out that it’s not a place you'd want to live. We know it’s the closest planet to the sun and it orbits in 88 days while one rotation of the planet on its axis takes 59 days. That day would be quite uncomfortable though. At night the temperature plummets to below -150 o C but during the day it can reach well over 400 o C, which is hot enough to melt lead. There’s no atmosphere either – that got blown off by the fearsome solar winds, and without an atmosphere it has been constantly bombarded by meteors so its surface is heavily cratered. Mercury - Image from NASA Seeing Mercury is difficult, even though it shines brighter than most stars in the sky. Its proximity to the sun means that its light gets drowned out by the twilight glow but every so often it steps out far enough from our per...