We now take up the various planets singly. The nearest to the sun, as far as known, is Mercury, its average distance being only 36,000,000 miles. But its orbit is so eccentric that the distance varies from 28,500,000 miles at perihelion to 43,500,000 at aphelion. In consequence its speed in its orbit is very variable, and likewise the amount of heat and light received by it from the sun. On the average it gets more than 61⁄2 times as much solar light and heat as the earth gets. But at perihelion it gets 21⁄2 times as much as at aphelion, and the time which it occupies in passing from perihelion to aphelion is only six weeks, its entire year being equal to 88 of our days. Being situated so much nearer the sun than the earth is, Mercury is never visible to us except in the morning or the evening sky, and then not very far from the sun. Its diameter is about 3000 miles, but its mass is not certainly known from lack of knowledge of its mean density. This lack of knowledge is due to the fact that Mercury has no satellite. When a planet has a satellite it is easy to calculate its density from its measured diameter combined with the orbital speed of its satellite. Certain considerations have led some to believe that the mean density of Mercury may be very great, perhaps as great as that of lead, or of the metal mercury itself. Not knowing the mass, we cannot say exactly what the weight of bodies on Mercury is. We are also virtually ignorant of the condition of the surface of this planet, the telescope revealing very little detail, but it is generally thought that it bears a considerable resemblance to the surface of the moon. There is another way in which Mercury is remarkably like the moon. The latter, as we have seen, always keeps the same side turned toward the earth, which is the same thing as saying that it turns once on its axis, while going once around the earth. So Mercury keeps always the same side toward the sun, making one rotation on its axis in the course of one revolution in its orbit. Consequently, one side of Mercury is continually in the sunlight, while the opposite side is continually buried in night. There must, however, be regions along the border between these two sides, where the sun does rise and set once in the course of one of Mercury's years. This arises from the eccentricity of the orbit, and the consequent variations in the orbital velocity of the planet, which cause now a little of one edge and now a little of the other edge of the dark hemisphere to come within the line of sunlight. (The same thing occurs with the moon, though to a less degree owing to the smaller eccentricity of the moon's orbit, which, however, is sufficient to enable us to see at one time a short distance round one side of the moon and at another time a short distance round the opposite side.) This phenomenon is known as libration. Mercury apparently possesses an atmosphere, but we know nothing certain concerning its density.