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
Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet " Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet "is the second in the series of "Mushroom Planet" books by Eleanor Cameron, and was published in 1956, two years after "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet". This children's book is set in a beach community in California, as well as on a tiny, habitable moon, "Basidium", in an invisible orbit 50,000 miles from Earth. The "Mushroom Planet," visited by the protagonists David and Chuck, is covered in various types of mushrooms and is populated by little green people. The story opens with Theo Bass, the cousin of