As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury is exposed to the star's enormous gravitational field. And it's really stressful.

Mercury's orbit. Mercury speeds ... Its oval-shaped orbit is highly elliptical, taking Mercury as close as 29 million miles (47 million km) and as far as 43 million miles (70 million km) from the sun.

Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system and the one closest to the Sun, has long baffled scientists with its twisted, fractured surface. Towering cliffs, deep ridges, and sprawling fracture ...

Mercury, like Earth, has an elliptical orbit around the sun. But since it's between Earth and the sun — and moves faster — it appears from our vantage point to change direction as it laps Earth.

“We also find an approximately 0.3 percent chance that Mars will be lost through collision or ejection and an approximately 0 ...

Sequence of 89 images taken by the monitoring cameras on board the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury, as the spacecraft made a close approach of Venus on August 10th, 2021.

Instead, the planet's orbit speed is to blame. Mercury travels at a faster pace than Earth. So when our planet is closest to Mercury, it seems for a moment as if it is moving in reverse, Caves says.

Before looking for Mercury, there is a simple rule. Never point binoculars or telescopes towards the Sun. It is best to wait for the Sun to have set. This will give you more than an hour to spot ...

Unlike Mariner 10, it would enter an elliptical orbit around the planet — an astonishing feat of celestial mechanics facilitated by a complex series of gravitational boosts from planetary flybys.

While studying Mercury’s surface temperatures, Soter paused to consider the effects of the planet’s elliptical orbit, which causes it to speed up as it nears its closest approach (28.7 million ...