How is planet Mercury able to survive so close to the Sun?
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Come on, trusty narrator. Is that the fastest you can go? I'm going. I'm going. Come on. I know you can go faster than that. Yeah, I don't know about that. Psst. Oh.

Smarty pants. In case you're wondering, I'm up in space, again, trying to keep pace with the fastest planet in our solar system, Mercury. Come on, why are you standing still? Um, can we take a little break here? A break? Trusty, I've been doing this for four and a half billion years. Surely you can jog around for a few hours. Okay, okay. Just a minute.

Just let me catch my breath and pose some intriguing questions about Mercury for the smarty pants to ponder. Like, what makes Mercury go so fast? Why is the closest planet to the sun so cold? And how is the first planet in our solar system connected to William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou, Walt Disney, and Dr. Seuss? I am indeed a cat, and this indeed is a hat.

Oh, the places you'll go, trusty narrator, if you would just go faster. I'm going. I'm going. It's time for another whiff of science and history on... Who Smarted? Who Smarted? Who's smart? Is it you? Is it me? Is it science or history? Listen up, everyone.

Hey parents, let's talk about screen time for a second. I know, I know, but hear me out. We all know we should cut back, but here's the problem. What's a good alternative? Lee! Emergency! A kid just wrote a story about a shy robot who uses a time-traveling skateboard to save a bunch of talking penguins from a super volcano! Uh, Peter, you're right. This sounds like a job for story pirates. I don't know.

I was just telling these nice people that Story Pirates is the number one kids and family podcast where we take stories written by real kids and turn them into absolutely epic musical comedy adventures. Like this. Cats sit on you and sometimes they take over the school. So instead of handing your kids an iPad, Story Pirates lets you hand them a brand new adventure every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

Confession time, smarty pants. I couldn't keep up. Mercury is just too fast. Even Mercury's name has something to do with speed. Do you know where it comes from? Is Mercury A, a Roman mythological god, B, a Greek god, or C, the ancient name for the fastest animal on Earth, the cheetah? If you said a cheetah, I'm sorry to say you're not even close. A cheetah is no match for Mercury.

At its top speed, a cheetah can run about 70 miles, or 112 kilometers, in one hour. Mercury can do that in under three seconds! It was actually the ancient Romans that named the planet Mercury after a mythological god said to be the fastest of all. Oh, and just for the record, the Greeks had their own god equivalent of Mercury. Do you know his name?

If you said Hermes, you're right. Hey, can we get back to Mercury, please? Sure. Mercury has the shortest year of all the planets, zipping around the sun in just 88 days.

That's more than two and a half times faster than the planet with the second shortest year. Any idea what planet that is? Earth, Venus, or Mars? There you go, bringing up Mars again. Oh, hey Venus. I thought I might run into you, since you're Mercury's neighbor. Uh-huh. I'm also the answer to your question. Venus has the second shortest year.

Of course, my year wouldn't be so long if I had a small orbit like Mercury's. It's true. Mercury's orbit around the sun is about 200 million miles, or 320 kilometers, smaller than yours. And since Mercury is closest to the sun, he gets the biggest pull of the sun's gravity. The more the sun pulls on a planet, the faster it goes. Are you implying something? Yep.

Mercury is cheating. Whoa, I wouldn't quite say that. Hey, I'm just saying, Mercury likes to act like he's so fast. But let's face it, he's getting some help. Sorry, Mercury, you ain't so hot. Actually, Mercury is very hot.

But to your point, Venus, surprisingly, Mercury's not the hottest planet despite being right next to the sun. Smarty Pants, any idea which planet is the hottest? Time's up. The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus. That's right. But hey, don't feel bad for Mercury. He gets to hold a record, too.

as the smallest major planet in the solar system. Yep, that is also true. In fact, Mercury is actually smaller than the largest moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But getting back to the hottest planet...

You mean me? Yes, you. No offense, Venus, but I find it strange that the second planet from the sun is somehow hotter than the planet closest to the sun. No offense taken, but facts is facts. Smarty pants, any guesses why Venus is actually hotter than Mercury? Is it A, Venus has a dense atmosphere?

B. Venus gets more sun flares. Or C. Venus is covered in lava. Why, it's my abundant atmosphere. It's like a thick, warm blanket that just traps the heat. Meanwhile, Mercury has next to nothing.

Maybe so, but I've got more celebrities. Whatever. Also, what does that mean, celebrities? I'm not 100% sure. I better go catch up with Mercury and ask him. Catch Mercury? You'll never catch him. No offense. None taken. And you're right. I can't catch Mercury while running. Luckily, I have this handy jetpack. See ya! Whoa! Mercury, wait up!

Hey, trusty narrator, sweet jetpack. Thanks. Whoa!

I don't use it too often. I'm still a little wobbly. Whoa! Try keeping your back straight, like me. If you notice, other planets like Earth spin at an angle, but I stay practically upright. Good posture can make you a better runner and can improve your breathing, digestion, circulation, and jetpacking. Oh, thanks for the tip. You know, I was just talking to Venus. Let me guess. She was boasting about how she's the hottest planet.

Yep. Figures. It's not like I'm some nice balmy place to hang out. I'm way too close to the sun to support any kind of life on my rocky surface. Plus, I'm bombarded by radiation and extreme temperatures. I don't even have seasons. Wow. Did Venus tell you why she's the hottest planet? She said it's because she has a dense atmosphere and you don't. Uh-huh. I'm not too proud to admit she's right. My atmosphere is the thinnest of all the planets and it doesn't hold in the heat.

This lets me get a nice cool down during my runs. Maybe too much. Ever had one of those days when it's really hot when the sun is out, but at night the temperature gets cold? Smarty pants, have you ever experienced that? Sometimes on Earth, the temperature can swing by as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit in a single day.

Yeah, you guys wouldn't stand a chance on my surface. I have the largest temperature fluctuations in the whole solar system. Smarty Pants, can you guess how many degrees the temperature can change on Mercury in one day? Is it 100 degrees? 200 degrees? 500 degrees? Or more?

The answer is... More! In one day, my temperature can fall by more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 600 degrees Celsius. During the day, I'm scorching hot, but at night, I'm about twice as cold as any place on Earth, including Antarctica. Sure, it's not as cold as the gas giants...

Not that kind of gas. He's talking about Uranus. And Neptune. Yeah, but I do get that kind of gas sometimes. But all the running helps with my digestion. But

But I digress. Unbelievably, I get colder than all the other planets inside the asteroid belt, even though I'm closest to the sun. Whoa. How so? For one thing, it slows me down big time. Earth turns much faster than I do. See if you can guess how long a typical day on me is.

The answer is...

You see, it takes me 59 Earth days to spin around. But because of my speed and my orbit, the sun doesn't rise and set in that time. On my surface, going from normal sunrise to sunset to sunrise again, a typical day, can take more than two of my years.

And that would be C, 176 Earth days. That's a long day. Be glad you don't go to school on Mercury. You'd have thousands of classes in just one day. And that's not the strangest thing. Sunrises are not normal on some parts of my surface. How so? And what was that you said earlier about celebrities? Would you like to visit my surface and find out? Sure. Smarty pants, let's do that right after this quick break.

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Hi, I'm Adam Gidwitz, host of Grim Grimmer Grimmest. On every episode, we tell a grim fairy tale. Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times. No, we tell the real grim fairy tales.

They're funny. They're weird. Sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry. We rate every episode Grim, Grimmer, or Grimmest. So you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you. Tune in to Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest and our new season available now. Now back to Who Smarted? Hey, smarty pants. I'm wearing a protective spacesuit about to head down to the surface of Mercury. Wish me luck.

Wow. First Mercury impressions. The sun looks huge here, about three times larger than it does on Earth. And the sunlight's intense. It's seven times brighter here than on Earth. Here, let me show you a sunrise. See if you notice anything strange. Smarty pants, listen in and note if anything sounds odd. Here we go. Okay, the sun is rising. Yeah.

And... No, wait! It's stopping and... It's going back down. But it didn't cross the sky. Oh, wait! Now it's going back up again! What's going on? On parts of my surface, my sunrise is totally out of whack. Has to do with my slow rotation and egg-shaped orbit. The sun goes up, then down, then back up again. Same thing happens at sunset, but in reverse. To rise or not to rise? That is the question. Hey!

Hey, was that William Shakespeare? And Dr. Seuss? I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny, but we could have lots of good fun that is funny. Chuck Berry? One of the inventors of rock and roll? Those are just some of my celebrities. They're all here. Smarty Pants, do you know how Mercury is connected to these celebrities? Is it A, they've all written about Mercury?

B, they share a birthday with Mercury. Or C, Mercury's craters are named after them.

Well, I was born about 4.5 billion years ago, so nobody knows when my birthday is. The answer is C. Thanks to all the space rocks and objects that have hit me over the years, I'm full of craters. Astronomers thought it would be fun to name my craters after artists, composers, and writers. I have craters named after the poet Maya Angelou, the artist Salvador Dali, the author Leo Tolstoy, and hundreds more.

There's even a crater named after Walt Disney that kind of looks like Mickey Mouse. - Smarty pants, how do you think Earth discovered all of Mercury's craters? From a space probe, from a telescope, or from astronauts sent to Mercury? - Well, no astronauts have ever visited me, that's for sure. Except you, trusty narrator. - And I'm just pretending. The answer is NASA's messenger probe. - Huh, that thing buzzed around me for over four years.

And it sent back tons of pictures, enough to map the entire surface of Mercury, capturing every crater. You can see them on NASA's website for free. Every crater except the one Messenger made when it crashed into my surface at the end of its mission.

I hear the European Space Agency is sending another probe your way, and it's going to learn more about craters by studying Messenger's impact. Really? Well, if I'm going to be photographed up close, I want to look my best, so I'm going to keep working out. You joining me, trustee? Um, I think I've had enough for today. And let's face it, you're just way too fast for me.

Thank you.

Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn. Who Smarted? is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios. Our associate producer is Max Kamaski. The theme song is by Brian Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex-Davis. Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Kolber. This has been an Atomic Entertainment production. Who Smarted?