Space is a fascinating place. It’s a place of extremes that we can’t even imagine. Let’s take a tour of what’s above us. First up, Mercury.
So you want to visit the planet closest to the sun? Welp, if you suddenly found yourself standing in the nude on the surface of Mercury, the first thing you might notice is that it’s perfectly clear as you look around. Mercury has no atmosphere to speak of. Not that there’s a whole lot to see, pretty much just impact craters on the surface and a black sky with a sun that’s more than twice as big as it appears on Earth.
And if you were standing in the sun on Mercury, you’d get an instant tan right before you were burnt to a crisp at the 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 Celsius) temperatures. But let’s say you aren’t immolated, then we could watch the sun’s unusual path across the sky. The sun would rise in the East, move across the sky to the West, then pause, move back to the East a bit before continuing to the West. Though to see that you’d get a neck cramp as the Mercury day is more than 50 Earth days long.
Looking down at your feet, you’d notice that you’d sunk down a few inches into a sandy, rocky surface. With no atmosphere, and therefore no weather, the rocks under your feet would be jagged and sharp, oh, and superheated, so enjoy that.
If you found yourself in the shade, there’d be some nasty frostbite at -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 Celsius). Interestingly enough for the planet tucked up right next to the sun, there are places on Mercury, down in craters, that have never seen the sun. You might even find yourself slipping around on ice.
As we mentioned, there’s no weather, so you wouldn’t need to worry about getting caught in a storm. You might feel an earthquake, however. Mercury doesn’t have the tectonic forces that cause earthquakes on Earth. These earthquakes are caused by Mercury compressing in on itself. That’s right, Mercury is shrinking.
So, let’s sum things up. If you found yourself standing on the surface of Mercury without a space suit, you’d suffocate while being fried if you were in the sun or frozen if you were in the shade. For however long your skin lasted, your legs and feet would be sliced up by the sharp rocks you were standing in.
But hey, Mercury’s gravity is less than on Earth, so you’d be able to jump about three times higher than you can on our planet. The Guinness Book of World Records says that Canadian Evan Ungar holds the world record standing jump at just over 5 feet. He’d be able to jump over 15 feet. That’s pretty cool.