Nasa's Messenger Sends First Full Fly-By Image of Mercury


On Monday Oct 6th 2008 NASA's Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft) began returning images of the planet Mercury. Flying 125 miles above the surface of the planet, it began taking pictures as well as collecting data. The pictures are high resolution and incredibly clear.

Being the nearest to the sun, Mercury - and Messenger - are both subject to very high temperatures. The sun is about 11 times brighter from Mercury than it appears from Earth and the temperature gets as high as 450 degrees celcius. Messenger is shielded from the sun's heat by a "sunshade made of heat-resistant ceramic cloth."

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The pictures are awesome and you can read here about the instruments onboard the probe.