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
Pioneer Terra Pioneer Terra Pioneer Terra is a region on the dwarf planet Pluto, north of Tombaugh Regio and east of Voyager Terra. It was discovered by the "New Horizons" spacecraft on 14 July 2015. It is named for the "Pioneer" program, which included "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11", the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt and explore Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the first to explore the outer solar system; "Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 9", which formed an "interplanetary weather network"; "Pioneer 1" through "5", which explored the Moon in various ways; and the Pioneer Venus project, consisting