Atlas — the interactive world
the Solar System · Understand · schematic figure · 8 planets · 5 dwarf planets · 2 belts · 1 comet · positions computed for today · editorial corpus · no live source connected
Terrestrial planet · Inner Solar System
Mercury
The smallest planet and the innermost — a cratered, airless world orbited so far by two spacecraft.
- Mean distance
- 0.387 au
- Orbital period
- 88 days
- Diameter
- 4,879 km
- Mass
- 0.33 ×10²⁴ kg
- Known moons
- 0 (as recorded)
Values: NASA Planetary Fact Sheet — not network-verified in this run.
Listed without a figure position: JPL small-body orbital elements were not importable in this environment, and no position is invented.
Recorded encounters
- 1974 Mariner 10Mariner 10 passes Mercury — the first spacecraft to reach it
- 2008 MESSENGERMESSENGER’s first Mercury pass — the first visit since 1975
- 2021 BepiColomboBepiColombo’s first Mercury flyby
An encounter sequence is the order the records give, not a flight path. Atlas holds no trajectory for these missions and draws none.
Data: NASA Planetary Fact Sheet · JPL approximate elements · JPL small-body database (1P/Halley).
Schematic · log-compressed · ranked discs · not an ephemeris — full statement →
Schematic view: distances are log-compressed (to true scale Neptune sits 30× Earth’s distance) and discs are ranked by size, not to scale. Positions computed from JPL mean orbital elements for today — an orientation good to a few degrees, not an ephemeris.
Data: NASA Planetary Fact Sheet · JPL approximate elements · JPL small-body database (1P/Halley).