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| Closest to the Sun Mercury |
Almost twice the size of Pluto and 4879 kilometres in diameter, Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun at a distance of only 57.9 million kilometres. It is only five percent of the Earth’s size and takes 58.65 days to revolve once on its axis which means that it has a day which is equal to 180 Earth days. Like Venus, Mercury does not have any moons: Mercury has highest orbital velocity because of which it take only 88 days to complete one revolution around the Sun.
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The surface gravity is about forty per cent of Earth’s gravity. Some of the first pictures taken by the space probe Mariner 10 showed that Mercury has a rocky terrain where the surface temperature rose as high as 350 degrees centigrade. The appearances of Mercury are known as elongation which come at intervals of 116 days, in other words Mercury can be seen thrice a year. Mercury last passed in front of the Sun on 13th November 1986.
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