Mercury (planet) three weeks, the Sun is almost stationary overhead, and is at its most brilliant because Mercury is at perihelion, its closest to the Sun. This prolonged exposure to the Sun at its brightest makes these two points the hottest places on Mercury. Conversely, there are two other points on the equator, 90 degrees of longitude apart from the first ones, where the Sun passes overhead only when the planet is at aphelion in alternate years, when the apparent motion of the Sun in Mercury's sky is relatively rapid. These points, which are the ones on the equator where the apparent
The Message to the Planet is a great novel, a merely interesting one, or an unclassifiable pandemonium". Another reviewer remarked that anyone "seeking an untroubled read and pat answers should seek them elsewhere". In his study of Iris Murdoch's fiction, Peter Conradi wrote that "The Message to the Planet" was a "lesser" novel, inferior to its predecessor "The Philosopher's Pupil", but with some memorable scenes. On the other hand, Suguna Ramanathan calls it "an extraordinary achievement" and "of all her 24 novels, the largest in scope and most powerful in thrust". The Message to the Planet The Message to the Planet is a novel by