Mercury

Mercury

Mercury
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 3 to 5
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	4.3

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		erosion, planet, axis, atmosphere, orbit, gravity, fastest, pounds, surface, weigh, visible, cause, between, quickly, million, weather
	content words:		If Earth, Because Mercury

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Mercury
By Cindy Grigg

¹ Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. It has almost no atmosphere. This means there is no air. Because there's no air, there is no weather. It is a small planet. Mercury is about one-third the size of Earth. If Earth were the size of a baseball, Mercury would be the size of a golf ball. Because it is so small, gravity is much less on Mercury than on Earth. If you weighed 100 pounds on Earth, you would only weigh 38 pounds on Mercury.

² It is a small, dark gray, rocky planet. It looks a lot like Earth's moon. Its dry, dusty surface is covered with craters. Craters are round holes where meteors have hit the planet. Because there is no wind, rain, or snow on Mercury to cause erosion, all of its craters are still visible. It gets very hot in the daytime and very cold at night.

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