Mercury (planet) diagram on the right illustrates the effects of the eccentricity, showing Mercury's orbit overlaid with a circular orbit having the same semi-major axis. Mercury's higher velocity when it is near perihelion is clear from the greater distance it covers in each 5-day interval. In the diagram the varying distance of Mercury to the Sun is represented by the size of the planet, which is inversely proportional to Mercury's distance from the Sun. This varying distance to the Sun leads to Mercury's surface being flexed by tidal bulges raised by the Sun that are about 17 times stronger than the Moon's
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet They tell the boys that their planet has had a crisis and that everyone is slowly dying of a mysterious sickness. The boys meet up with the king of the planet, the Great Ta, and end up solving the natives' problem, before returning to Earth. The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet is a children's science fiction novel written by Eleanor Cameron, illustrated by Robert Henneberger, and published by Little, Brown in 1954. It is set in Pacific Grove, California, and on Basidium, a tiny habitable moon of Earth, invisible from the planet