The Planet-Mercury
The Planet-Mercury Catapulted by Venus gravitational field, our spacecraft bends its flight path by some 40 degrees and races on toward Mercury, the innermost and smallest planet in the solar system. A year or so later we reach this small planet which has only about a third the diameter of earth. We approach it so fast and it looms so swiftly that we almost feel vertigo. Our earth lies 93 million miles behind yet it is still a very bright point of light. The sun is now only 43 million miles away and it appears twice as large as when viewed from earth. The surface of Mercury filling our view is a rare sight, never clearly seen from earth. Now we see it with perfect clarity, no atmospheric effects block the vista. We are only about 600 miles from the surface, and our eyes can distinguish objects as small as 1,700 feet across. Everywhere we see evidence that this rocky cinder has been cratered by comets and asteroids, and it is not hard to imagine that it was once scorched by tremendou...