Mercury Report

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Term Paper Title	Mercury Report
# of Words	785
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.14

Mercury Report

[Category]:

Science

[Paper Title]:

[Text]:

Mercury Report

The magnificent planet Mercury is the planet I have chosen to research. In
this report I have explained all there is to know about Mercury.

The Romans gave Mercury its name after the fleet-footed messenger of the
gods, because it seemed to move quicker than any other planet. It is the closest
planet to the Sun, and second smallest planet in the solar system. Its diameter
is 40% smaller than Earth, and 40% larger than the Moon. It is even smaller than
Jupiter's moon Ganymede, and Saturn's moon Titan.

Mercury's history of formation is similar to that of Earth's, which happened
about 4.5 billion years ago. It has a dense metallic core, and a silicate crust.
Its surface is no longer active and remains the same as it has for millions of
years. Plains cover the majority of Mercury’s surface. Much of it is old and
heavily cratered, but some of the plains are less heavily cratered. Scientists
have classified these plains as intercrater plains, and smooth plains.
Intercrater plains are less saturated with craters, and were probably formed as
lava flows buried the older terrain. The smooth plains are younger still with
fewer craters. They can be found around the largest crater on Mercury, the
Caloris basin. The Caloris basin is 1,300 kilometers in diameter, and was
probably caused by a projectile larger than 100 kilometers in size. The impact
produced concentric mountain rings three kilometers high and sent ejecta 600 to
800 kilometers across the planet.

Like our Moon, Mercury has almost no atmosphere, mostly burned off millions
of years ago by the planet's close proximity to the Sun. What little atmosphere
exists is composed chiefly of argon, neon and helium. With no atmosphere to
protect the surface, there has been no erosion from wind or water, and
meteorites do not burn up due to friction as they do in other planetary
atmospheres. Mercury's surface is also very much like Earth's Moon, scarred by
thousands of impact craters resulting from collisions with meteors. While there
are areas of smooth terrain, there are also cliffs, some soaring up to two miles
high.

Most of the scientific findings about Mercury came from the Mariner 10
spacecraft, which was launched on November 3, 1973. It flew past the planet on
March 29, 1974 at a distance of 705 kilometers from the surface. On September
21, 197...

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