What is more, Heraclitus of Pontus is credited with first realizing that Venus and Mercury revolve around the Sun and not the Earth. However, the Greek astronomer Pythagoras understood that it was the same body. His morning apparition was called Apollo, and the evening apparition – Hermes. The ancient Greeks considered the morning and evening appearances of Mercury to be two different celestial bodies. The earliest records of observations of the planet were made by the Babylonians, who called it gu-ad or gu-tu. Mercury has been known since at least the time of the Sumerians from the 3rd millennium BC, who called it Ubu-idim-gud-ud. It makes three rotations on its axis every two revolutions around the Sun. The planet also has the smallest tilt on its axis. Mercury’s orbit has a greater eccentricity than the orbits of all the other planets in the Solar System. Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System and the closest one to the Sun, around which it makes one revolution every 87,969 Earth days.
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