Related topics: mercury

What's important to know about planet Mercury?

Close by the Sun is Mercury, a practically atmosphere-like world that has a lot of craters. Until NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft arrived there in 2008, we knew very little about the planet—only part of it had been imaged! ...

NASA probe aims to unlock Mercury's secrets (Update)

NASA scientists pored Wednesday over stunning new images of Mercury as their MESSENGER probe began a year-long mission to map the surface of the solar system's least-understood planet.

Scientists discover dual-function messenger RNA

For the very first time, a study led by Julian Chen and his group in Arizona State University's School of Molecular Sciences and the Biodesign Institute's Center for the Mechanism of Evolution, has discovered an unprecedented ...

Earth-directed coronal mass ejection from the sun

(Phys.org) —On March 15, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one ...

New genetic editing powers discovered in squid

Revealing yet another super-power in the skillful squid, scientists have discovered that squid massively edit their own genetic instructions not only within the nucleus of their neurons, but also within the axon—the long, ...

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MESSENGER

The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) space probe is a robotic NASA spacecraft in orbit around the planet Mercury. The 485-kilogram (1,070 lb) spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study the chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field of Mercury. It became the second mission after 1975's Mariner 10 to reach Mercury successfully when it made a flyby in January 2008, followed by a second flyby in October 2008, and a third flyby in September 2009. MESSENGER is furthermore the first spacecraft ever to orbit Mercury.

The instruments carried by MESSENGER were tested on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury with minimal fuel. MESSENGER successfully entered Mercury's orbit on 18 March 2011, and reactivated its science instruments on 24 March, returning the first photo from Mercury orbit on 29 March. MESSENGER's formal science data collection mission began on 4 April 2011.

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