Atmosphere
A tenuous exosphere of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium.
Acquiring mission data
Apex AndromedaApex AndromedaAcquiring mission data
Planet 01 · Terrestrial planet
A metal-heavy world at the Sun's front door.
Mercury is the smallest planet and the fastest around the Sun. Its battered surface hides an oversized metallic core, polar ice, and a magnetic field that should not be there if the planet were as dead as it looks.
World profile
A tenuous exosphere of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium.
Rocky, heavily cratered, and marked by volcanic plains and enormous scarps.
About −290 to 800 °F (−180 to 430 °C)
None
Composition
Field notes
A solar day lasts 176 Earth days even though a year takes only 88.
Mercury is not the hottest planet; without a thick atmosphere, heat escapes quickly after sunset.
MESSENGER found evidence that part of the enormous core remains molten or liquid.
Sourced image archive
Every image keeps its credit, capture date, description, and original source. Mission imagery links back into the same Andromeda mission catalog.
Mission imagery
MESSENGER color base-map globe centered at 0° latitude and 140° east longitude. The enhanced colors reveal differences in Mercury's rocks and surface materials.
Connected mission archive
Flybys, orbiters, landers, atmospheric probes, rovers, launch missions, gravity assists, and system satellites are linked here when they exist in the Andromeda catalog.
Open mission browser →3 linked missions · showing 1–3
Deep space · Deep-space mission
BepiColombo is catalogued by GCAT as a deep-space mission in the ESA Plan program.
View in 3D map — BepiColomboPrimary facts source
NASA Science · Mercury facts ↗Associations use destination records plus a curated cross-world manifest for flybys and gravity assists. Mission-name collisions such as Project Mercury and Saturn launch vehicles are deliberately kept with Earth unless they actually visited the planet. Technically obvious; historically necessary.
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