Mercury

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Mercury

 MERCURY is the closest planet to the sun and the second hottest planet by day, but at night it is much colder than the coldest place on earth. If you landed on Mercury you would find rocky hills and mountains.

Mercury is a small dry planet, with a dusty surface.  It has many big holes that were made by crashing asteroids. Most of the planet is covered with thousands of circular, mountain-rimmed craters. The craters have been given names after great figures in the arts. Mozart, Beethoven, and Michelangelo are all craters on Mercury.

Mercury’s largest crater is known as the Caloris Basin. The crater is a series of several rings, one inside the other. It is huge, more than 860 miles across. The space rock that made it was probably about 60 miles wide. It hit so hard that it almost destroyed the entire planet!