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
The empire on which the sun never sets expression, the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines upon one part or other of them : which, to say truly, is a beam of glory [...]". Thomas Urquhart wrote of "that great Don Philippe, Tetrarch of the world, upon whose subjects the sun never sets." In the German dramatist Friedrich Schiller's 1787 play, "Don Carlos", Don Carlos's father, Philip II, says, "" ("I am called / The richest monarch in the Christian world; / The sun in my dominion never sets."). Joseph Fouché recalled Napoleon saying before the Peninsular War, "Reflect that the sun never sets