photo credit: NASA - JHUAPL - Carnegie Institution of Washington

In Roman mythology, Mercurius is the god of commerce, travel, communication and thievery, the counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods. Mercurius is one of the Dii Consentes, the twelve most important of the Roman gods.

The planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and is the eighth largest in mass, at 3.30 x 10^23 kg. It has no known satellites. It is approximately 4,880 km in diameter, and it orbits an average of 57,910,000 km (0.38 au) from the Sun. NOTE: 1 au (Astronomical Unit) is the average distance from the center of the Sun to Earth's orbit. It takes just under 88 Earth days to orbit the sun. Because Mercury is tidally locked to the sun, a person standing on the surface would experience one "day" every two "years". Temperatures on the surface can range from 800ºF (427°C) down to -280ºF (−173°C).

Between 2011 and 2015, NASA's probe MESSENGER orbited Mercury and conducted numerous scientific tests. The above photo was taken on 3 Feb 2013 by MESSENGER's Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer. The colors indicate the presence of iron and titanium minerals on the planet's surface.

In redoing this series, we have taken the subtitles for most of the planets from Gustav Holst's orchestral suite "The Planets", op. 32, to avoid confusion with the old set hidden by BLIG 15 years ago.

You are looking for a micro-sized container, with only a logsheet in it, so bring your own pen/pencil! It is now on the ground, under a buckwheat bush, with a small rock on top of it, about three feet off the trail. Please re-hide the cache well: thank you! Coords tend to "wobble" here, so you might wind up checking more than one bush. Be sure to copy the clue to the Solar System Tour. Use caution when reaching into places where you can't see. Finally, bring more water than you think you will need.