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Mercury is far bigger than Australia with a surface area of 74,797,000 squared kilometers whilst Australia’s is 7,617,930 square km. In regards to their overall diameter, even with the smaller diameter amongst the planets of 4,878km, Australia’s is still far smaller at max diameter of 3,500km.
For a more thorough breakdown of the size of both Australia and Mercury continue reading as it will be discussed below.
How Big Is Australia?
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world, following Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil. This commonwealth country comprises mainland Australia plus Tasmania and several other smaller islands; this land has a total area of 7,617,930 sq. km.
As for the overall volume of Australia, if we consider that Earth’s crust ranges from around 5 to 70 km in thickness. Generally, this crust is thicker under the continental land, which averages 40 km.
Therefore, by taking this average of 40km and multiplying it by the surface area of Australia, the volume would come up to roughly 304,717,200 cubic km.
The diameter of Australia, measuring from East to West, is 4000km, making it wider than the moon along with a large number of the smaller moons and planets like Pluto.
Within this expansive continent is a collection of mountainous regions and ranges. The largest is the Great Dividing Range or the Eastern Highlands, which stretch 3,500km parallel to the East Coast.
Within the Great Dividing range lie the Australian Alps, a mountain range that is host to some of the highest peaks in the country, including Mount Kosciuszko, which is 2,228m high.
Fifty kilometers to the west of Sydney are the Blue Mountains, which are named for the blue haze filling the surrounding area. While these mountains are impressive, Australia has surprisingly few notable peaks considering its size. Instead, it has vast expanses of desert known as the Australian outback.
How Big Is Mercury?
Mercury is the smallest planet in the Milky Way, with a diameter of 4,878km – around 50% larger than the diameter of Mercury. At only two-fifths the size of Earth, Mercury is even smaller than the largest moons in our solar system, Ganymede and Titan.
This planet is a similar size to our moon and is only 58 million kilometers from the Sun, which means that the Sun would appear three times larger if we were standing on Mercury compared to standing on Earth. And because of this proximity, surface temperatures reach as high as 430 degrees Celsius during the day.
This rocky planet possesses an iron core that comprises a large part of the interior; it accounts for around three-quarters of Mercury’s diameter. Approximately 70% of Mercury’s weight is attributed to its iron, with the core a similar size to our moon. Atop the core sits a rocky mantle of approximately 55km in thickness.
The surface of Mercury is similar to that of our moon, with a number of impact craters caused by meteorite collisions. Some of the most significant impact basins include Caloris (with a diameter of 1,550km) and Rachmaninoff (with a diameter of 306km), created by early asteroid impacts.
Mercury has many areas of smooth terrain, along with cliffs that stretch for hundreds of kilometers and reach up to a mile into the sky. These cliffs were formed over billions of years as Mercury’s interior cooled and contracted.
And NASA’s research into these cliff-like landforms – or scarps – shows that Mercury continues to shrink. The size of the scarps displays their youth and suggests that Mercury is still tectonically active, just like Earth. As the interior continues to cool, the planet will continue to contract.
The surface area of Mercury is around 74,797,000 square kilometers, about 10 times the surface area of the Australian continent.
Furthermore, Mercury is spherical in shape so it’s overall volume would blow the value of any if not all countries and continents on Earth, out of the water.
This is because Mercury’s volume of 60.8 billion cubic kilometers makes it so Australia’s volume doesn’t even come close to the cubic measure of even the smallest planet in our solar system.
Summary
All in all and in practically every measurement Mercury is bigger than Australia, after all Australia isn’t even the biggest country on Earth and a good bit smaller than even the moon.
Even if the countries surface were to match that of Mercury, or possibly even exceed it, the volume of Mercury would absolutely crush Australia’s, Ultimately Mercury’s volume of 60.8 billion cubic kilometers is close to 20 times that of Australia where the country is an estimated 304 million cubic kilometers.
