NASA shares stunning image of solar system’s smallest planet Mercury

The stunning image of Mercury posted by the NASA on Instagram, has created chatter on social media.

Hyderabad: The stunning image of Mercury, the smallest planet of our solar system, posted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Instagram, has created chatter on social media. The image was captured by MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to ever orbit the planet.

In its post, NASA also explained several details regarding the planet. “Slightly larger than Earth’s Moon, Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system and is the closest to the Sun at an average of 36 million miles (58 million km) away. While Mercury may be the smallest planet, it is also the speediest, traveling (sic) in its orbit at almost 29 miles (47 km) per second, making a year on Mercury just 88 Earth days,” the space agency wrote.

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Sharing that the planet has a thin exosphere composed mostly of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium, instead of an atmosphere, the space agency said that Mercury appears tan and several shades of blue, with craters marking the surface, allowing scientists to examine the geological features.

“Due to its lack of atmosphere and proximity to the Sun, daytime and night time on Mercury swing dramatically in temperature ranging from 800ºF (430ºC) during the day to -290 ºF (-180 ºC) at night. Mercury’s comparatively weak magnetic field compared to Earth, at just 1% strength of our own, interacts with solar winds creating magnetic tornados that tear across the planet’s surface,” the post further read.