It's taken more than 6 years, but MESSENGER has finally made it into Mercury's orbit!
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) Space Probe was launched in 2004, with the purpose of studying the composition and magnetic field of the closest planet to our sun. Sending a probe to Mercury is not as easy as you might think. We can't just aim a rocket towards mercury and let the probe go; it would pass right on by Mercury and get swallowed by the sun. Instead, we must aim it such that the probe will make multiple orbits around the sun, each one honing closer into mercury's orbit. MESSENGER had to make 7 (I believe) orbits around the sun before it made it was captured by Mercury's gravitational field. The very first image send back from MESSENGER in Mercury's orbit is shown above. Mercury looks much like the moon; a small rocky body that's been bombarded by craters for years! MESSENGER plans to sends tons of pictures of Mercury back to Earth, so stay tuned for even more awesome shots of this little planet!
