Mercury-2

We have seen two comets; we have seen the other
planets; but we do not know a lot about
Mercury. What we do know points to a forbidding
world pock– marked with craters. Mercury, for us, is a planet
of extremes. Of all the planets, Venus
has the hottest temperature; but temperature
variations on Mercury are huge, about 600 degreed
between day and night, so you have like 450
degrees on the surface during the day (and imagine
that's like being in a pizza oven on earth) so it's really hot there;
and temperatures at about minus hundred seventy-five
degrees at night.

One of the great mysteries of Mercury is its orbit
and rotation. It follows an unusual pattern:
one day on Mercury can last up
to a hundred and seventy– six Earth days;
and yet one year lasts 88 Earth days.
Nicolas Rambaux, from the observatory of
Paris, has spent years researching the
rotation of Mercury.

The rotation of Mercury is
really unique in the solar system:
Mercury rotates two times around the Sun
in the time that it turns three times
around its polar axis.

Mercury follows an odd, elliptical, orbit
in which it passes within 47 million
kilometers of the Sun; and then swings

out to 70 million kilometers. All the while
it rotates slowly on its axis: meaning
the passing of a day on Mercury is like
no other.