Mercury (planet) Mercury (planet) Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 87.97 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System. It is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Like Venus, Mercury orbits the Sun within Earth's orbit as an "inferior planet", and never exceeds 28° away from the Sun. When viewed from Earth, this proximity to the Sun means the planet can only be seen near the western or eastern horizon during the early evening or early morning. At this time it
Third from the Sun called "Earth". Todd VanDerWerff of "The A.V. Club" rated it A and called the twist "justifiably famous". The episode contains an anomaly: the planet revealed as being Earth is described as being in another solar system, "11 million miles" away. The next closest solar system to our sun is actually 25.7 trillion miles away. Third from the Sun "Third from the Sun" is episode 14 of the American television anthology series "The Twilight Zone". It is based on a short story of the same name by Richard Matheson which first appeared in the first issue of the magazine "Galaxy Science