Who was the first person to discover the planet mercury?
Mercury itself has been mentioned as early as the 2nd millennium BC by the Sumerians, and recorded by the Babylonians – they called the planet Nabu. The ancient Greeks associated Mercury with the god Hermes, who was thought to carry the Sun across the sky in his chariot. Later the Greeks called the planet Apollo when it was visible in the morning sky, and then Hermes in the evening sky. The Romans named the planet after the Roman messenger god Mercury, who was the same mythological figure as the Greek god Hermes. The first telescopic observations were made by Galileo in the 17th century with his crude telescope; unfortunately, his crude instrument wasn’t powerful enough to see that the planet had phases, like Venus.
