Mercury

the planet nearest the sun. From its brightness and quick way of shifting its position, the Greeks gave this planet the appropriate name of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods. It is so near the sun that it appears as an evening or as a morning star. As a morning star it is seen to better advantage in March and April. It is a brilliant evening star in September and October. Mercury is the swiftest, the smallest, and the lightest of the planets. It has no satellites. It rotates once in eighty-eight days, the length of time required to pass around the sun; that is, a rotation for each revolution. It occasionally passes between the earth and the sun. A transit occurred in 1894, and another in 1907. See Saturn