MESSENGER sends back first image of Mercury from orbit
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - 09:30
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has captured a historic image of the planet Mercury. The image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down.