{"id":963,"date":"2006-01-19T11:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-19T10:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/mercury\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T00:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:34:16","slug":"mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/mercury\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Mercure est la plan\u00e8te la plus proche du Soleil. Elle n'est pas tr\u00e8s facile \u00e0 observer parce qu'elle est toujours pr\u00e8s du Soleil dans le ciel. M\u00eame dans le meilleur des cas, elle se trouve \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 de l'horizon et n'est visible que pendant quelques heures apr\u00e8s le coucher du soleil ou avant le lever du soleil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Elle doit son nom au \" Messager ail\u00e9 des Dieux \" parce qu'elle se d\u00e9place tr\u00e8s rapidement autour du Soleil et effectue un tour complet en seulement 88 jours. Elle tourne toutefois tr\u00e8s lentement sur elle-m\u00eame (sa p\u00e9riode de rotation \u00e0 l'\u00e9quateur est de 58,6 jours). C'est exactement les deux tiers de sa p\u00e9riode orbitale.<\/p>\n

Mercure est une petite plan\u00e8te rocheuse. Son diam\u00e8tre est \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00e9quivalent \u00e0 la largeur de l'oc\u00e9an Atlantique et elle pourrait \u00eatre contenue 18 fois dans la Terre.<\/p>\n

Mercure ressemble beaucoup \u00e0 la Lune. Sa surface est couverte de crat\u00e8res d'impact. L'atmosph\u00e8re et l'eau y sont inexistantes. \u00c0 midi, sa temp\u00e9rature \u00e0 l'\u00e9quateur peut grimper jusqu'\u00e0 450\u00b0C mais les nuits sont extr\u00eamement froides, avec des temp\u00e9ratures inf\u00e9rieures \u00e0 -180\u00b0C. Ses crat\u00e8res sombres pr\u00e8s des p\u00f4les pourraient cacher de l'eau glac\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

Mercure a une densit\u00e9 \u00e9tonnamment \u00e9lev\u00e9e. On suppose qu'elle poss\u00e8de un grand noyau ferreux, qui remplit presque tout son volume int\u00e9rieur. La force de son champ magn\u00e9tique est aussi surprenante.<\/p>\n

Pour l'instant, la sonde Mariner 10 nous a r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9 un peu moins de la moiti\u00e9 de sa surface. L'ESA et le Japon ont pr\u00e9vu de lancer deux sondes spatiales sur Mercure en 2013. La mission a \u00e9t\u00e9 appel\u00e9e BepiColombo en l'honneur du c\u00e9l\u00e8bre math\u00e9maticien et savant Italien.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercury is the first planet from the Sun. It is not very easy to observe since it is always close to the Sun in the sky. Even when best placed, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"esa_banner_image":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2006\/01\/mercury_s_southern_hemisphere2\/17904638-2-eng-GB\/Mercury_s_Southern_Hemisphere.jpg","esa_banner_description":"","esa_banner_credit":"JPL","esa_banner_licence":"ESA Standard Licence","esa_banner_detail_url":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/ESA_Multimedia\/Images\/2006\/01\/Mercury_s_Southern_Hemisphere2","esa_external_url":"","esa_external_new_window":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[10,11,12],"tags":[2],"panel":[],"language":[],"age":[],"duration":[],"resource_type":[],"audience":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn","category-our-universe","category-planets-and-moons","tag-background-article"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"panel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panel?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"age","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"duration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/duration?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}