Length of One Year

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The length of one year for any planet is the time that it takes it to make one orbit around the Sun. For Earth the length of one year is about 365 Earth days. It takes Mercury only 88 Earth days to orbit the Sun. To see just how swiftly Mercury orbits the Sun compare it to Pluto, which takes over 248 Earth years to make one orbit.

Odd but true: Mercury not only orbits the Sun in the least amount of time, it also moves the fastest along its orbital path, with an average speed of about 48 km per second. If you could run at that speed you would could run from New York City to Los Angeles in less than 83 seconds!