While the video of Mercury’s transit across the Sun is breathtaking. The small planet even appears as a black disk silhouetted against the bright solar star that our solar system is centered around.

Mercury, the smallest and least massive of the solar system's planets, also possesses a magnetosphere. However, its magnetosphere is typically only about 5% the size of Earth's.

Mercury, the smallest and least massive of the solar system's planets, also possesses a magnetosphere. However, its magnetosphere is typically only about 5% the size of Earth's.

Here’s how it works. The planet Mercury is a weird one in our solar system. Here's how the giant planets made it so. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie) ...

About 80 aubrite meteorites have been found on Earth. For these reasons, they seem to match scientific models of conditions on the planet Mercury in earlier days of the solar system.

Painters have played a significant but underappreciated role in our exploration of the worlds in our solar system. Scientists tend to specialize in narrow aspects of reality — spectroscopy ...