World

Mercury

Mercury is a world in the solar system, about 4 879 km across.

Key facts

Diameter

4 879 km

Goes round

The Sun

See it from here

You can see this one with your own eyes.

How the map draws it

Lit as a camera exposed for its own sunlight would show it · seen from far off it is a light at its computed brightness: the glow is how a camera records a point too bright to resolve · on a larger screen its relief is from MESSENGER’s elevation model, drawn 4 times steeper than measured so that crater rims catch the light.