Feature

Into orbit

MESSENGER pays a yearlong visit to Mercury

By Ron Cowen

- More than 2 years ago

Hidden by the sun’s glare and dismissed as a heavily cratered rock no different than Earth’s moon, Mercury has for decades been relegated to the back burner of planetary research. But studies of the planet closest to the sun have now ignited.

NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Lab, Carnegie Institution for Science

MESSENGER is getting a detailed look at cratered regions near Mercury’s two poles.