Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system. Its diameter currently measures just over 3,000 miles, about the size of the continental United States. Like Earth, Mercury is a terrestrial planet with three main layers, a core, a mantle, and a crust. Only Mercury's crust has no tectonic plates. Also, its iron core is enormous by comparison, making up 85% of its radius, while Earth's inner and outer core account for just 5596. Because of the core's exceptional size, it's had a surprising influence on Mercury's overall size, by causing it to shrink. The hot iron core has slowly cooled and contracted over the planet's 4.5 billion years. In doing so, it pulled Mercury's surface inward, and has caused the planet to shrink radially by more than four miles. This shrinking planet is also the planet closest to the sun, orbiting our solar system's star at an average distance of roughly 36 million miles. Such proximity affects Mercury's atmosphere, or rather, the lack of one. It only has a very thin exosphere, which is traditionally the outermost layer of a planet's atmosphere. This exosphere is made of oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium, all whipped up from the planet's surface by solar winds.