7 JANUARY 2021 The planets of the Solar System look a lot like a family. Jupiter's the bossy dad, keeping everyone in line. Uranus and Neptune are the cool twins who only hang out with each other. Earth is the super-nerd try-hard. Pluto is the black sheep. And Mercury has a tail.
Yep. Almost like a big ol' comet, tail streaming millions of kilometres away from the planet, glowing with faint orange-yellow light. It's all thanks to the planet's position: Mercury is the innermost planet in our Solar System. It's less than half the distance from our star than Earth, an average distance of 58 million kilometres (36 million miles).