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Meet our neighbours: Mercury

Created: 2025-03-10

Author(s):
Lina Canas

Let's build a tactile version of Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun of the Solar System, using cheap, household items. This model can be used to identify and explore the different characteristics of the smallrocky planet, and just like for the other activities of the "Meet our Neighbours" series, the tactile Mercury will be a great resource for both visually impaired and normal vision students.
NOTE: The "Meet our neighbours!" project is published in AstroEDU in this activity Collection. It was produced by NUCLIO and Europlanet and supported by Galileo Teaching Training Program and GalileoMobile. You can find more information at this Link

Materials

For each group bulding a tactile Mercury:

Two printed copies of the attached PDF file (Tactile_Mercury.pdf)
thick fabric (for surface)
Flat black sequins (for small craters)
A bigger button of a different color (for Caloris Basin)
Glue and scissors.

NOTE: These materials are only suggestions; all textures can be replaced by other local, easy to find, low-cost materials.

Goals

To explore Mercury through a tactile hands-on experience for visually impaired students and their non-visually impaired peers.

Learning Objectives

Students will explore and learn the characteristics of Mercury building and using its tactile model: the color of its surface, the presence of craters and much more.

Background

General Information

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, at a mean distance of 58 million km. If one could stand on the surface of Mercury when it is at its closest point to the Sun, the Sun would appear almost three times as large as it does from Earth. Scientists used to think that the same side of Mercury always faces the sun, but in 1965, astronomers discovered that the planet rotates three times during every two orbits. Mercury speeds around the sun every 88 days traveling through space at nearly 50 km per second — faster than any other planet. One Mercury day equals 176 Earth days.
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it is hard to observe directly from Earth except during twilight. Mercury makes an appearance indirectly, however — 13 times each century, Earth observers can watch Mercury pass across the face of the Sun, an event called a transit.
With a diameter of about 4,900 km, Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, only slightly larger than the Moon. It is also the second densest planet after Earth, with a large iron core having a radius of 1,850 km, about 75% of the planet’s radius. Its outer shell, comparable to Earth’s outer shell (called the mantle), is only 500 km thick.
Temperatures on Mercury’s surface can reach 430°C. Because the planet has no atmosphere to retain that heat, night time temperatures on the surface can drop to –70°C. Rather than an atmosphere, Mercury possesses a thin “exosphere” made up of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind and micrometeorites.

Craters

Mercury’s surface resembles that of Earth’s Moon, scarred by many impact craters (materialized by sequins on the tactile image- point2) resulting from collisions with meteorites and comets.

Caloris Basin

The Caloris Basin (materialized by the largest sequin on the tactile image- point 3), one of the largest features on Mercury, is about 1,300 km in diameter. It was the result of an asteroid impact on the planet’s surface early in the solar system’s history. Over the next half-billion years, the outer crust contracted and grew strong enough to prevent magma from reaching the surface, ending the period of geologic activity.

Scarps or cliffs

While there are areas of smooth terrain, there are also lobe-shaped scarps or cliffs (materialized by deep strips on the thick fabric on the tactile image- point 4), some hundreds of kilometres long and soaring up to a kilometre high, formed by early contraction of the crust.

Full Description

Prior to the activity

Print 2 copies of Mercury mold PDF for each group, and prepare the materials listed above.
Ask students what they know about Mercury, introducing it as the first planet from the Sun, for some aspects similar to our Moon. Tell students they will be making models of the planet to investigate its different features.

During the activity

Gather the children in groups of 5 elements – visually impaired and non-visually impaired (ideally three non-visually impaired to 2 visually impaired);
Distribute materials accordingly;
Close supervision is important. Follow each group and explain each of the tactile elements and their correspondence to each object feature.
Understand the different needs of each group of students to promote interaction between the students during the building of the tactile image – visually impaired students need to be familiarized with the different materials involved.
Give enough time to follow instructions and build the tactile image.

Building the tactile Mercury

Step1
Cut the outer round shape of the planet from one of the paper prints;

Step 2
Place it on top of the thick fabric and with a pen draw the circle;

Step 3
Cut the round shape on the thick fabric;

Step 4
Place abundant glue on the paper image and then place the cutted fabric on top of the glue;

Step 5
With a toothpick scrap the thick fabric on top of the thin lines mark each them until you can feel a bump;

Step 6
On the thick fabric, you will have recreated the features of the surface;

Step 7
Place abundant glue on top of the different regions corresponding to the cratered surface;

Step 8
Place the small sequins on the glue;

Step 9
Glue the big button on the biggest crater of the image;

Step 10
Wait for the image to dry. It might take a while before you can explore the image.

Exploring the tactile Mercury

There are several ways in which you can explore the scientific content of the tactile schematic images. If you’re presenting the final tactile image to the students, first let them explore and feel the different textures. Questions will arise as students explore and it is important to guide them. Read “Background Information” section to understand the different features present in Mercury ’s schematic tactile image.

In the image above you can identify the following features:

(1) surface
(2) craters
(3) Caloris Basin
(4) Scarps and cliffs

Evaluation

Call out a feature of Mercury and ask the students to point it out on their diagram. For each feature give a brief description. e.g. - These are holes on the surface (Answer: craters).

Ask the class to suggest how Mercury is similar and different form the Earth and why.