What is the planet Mercury's environment like?

Answer 1

Mercury is un-livable, because it's surface becomes extremely hot and extremely cold.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and its slow rotation gives most of the surface 88 Earth days of blistering heat followed by 88 days of incredible cold (on the side not heated by the Sun).

Answer 2

The climate of a planet is defined by the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall and many other factors. Earthhas a climate, obviously, and even Mars andVenus have atmospheres and some kind of climate. But what about the other terrestrial planet, Mercury? What kind of climate does Mercury have?

First, let's look at temperature. Temperatures on Mercury can range from 700 Kelvin (426 degrees Celsius) when you're at the equator at noon, and then dip down to 100 Kelvin (-173 degrees C) in the middle of Mercury's night.

The atmospheric pressure on Mercury is estimated to be 0.000000000002 kilograms per square centimeter. Just for comparison, the air pressure on Earth is 1.03 kilograms per square centimeter. In other words, the atmospheric pressure on Earth is 515 billion times higher than the pressure on Mercury. In fact, Mercury doesn't really have an atmosphere, it has an exosphere. This is a thin collection of particles surrounding the planet, which is regenerated by the Sun's solar wind and dust kicked up from micrometeorite impacts.

And then from here on out, there isn't much else to Mercury's climate. There is some watervapor in Mercury's "atmosphere", but it's not really possible to measure it in terms of humidity. There's no wind, apart from the steady blowing of the solar wind. There's norainfall, aerosols in the atmosphere, etc.

Mercury is really just a dry, dead world with no active climate to speak of.

We have written many stories about Mercury here on Universe Today. Here's an article about a the discovery that Mercury's core is liquid. And how Mercury is actually less like the Moon than previously believed.

Want more information on Mercury? Here's a link to NASA's World Book on Mercury, and here's NASA's Solar System Exploration Guide to Mercury.

We have also recorded a whole episode of Astronomy Cast that's just about planet Mercury. Listen to it here, Episode 49: Mercury.

Clima de Mercurio

Answer 3

Mercury has two climate

They are either really hot or really cold due to the fact that mercuryis the closest to the sun,rotates really slow and lacks a protective atmosphere

Answer 4

Surface has many craters and high cliffs.

Answer 5

Get over 800 degrees and a low of -290 degrees

-300f - 800f

Answer 6

Mercury has no climate since it has no substantial atmosphere.

Answer 7

very hot!