NASA released new closeup images of Mercury. The new images were taken by NASA's Messenger spacecraft which is now orbiting the planet using its Mercury Dual Imaging System. Messenger's mission is to research on the geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment of the planet. NASA is in partnership with The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Messenger is expected to take 75,000 images of Mercury.
Messenger is an acronym for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging. It was launched on August 3, 2004 and went on fly-bys of Earth, Venus and Mercury. On march 17 it has started to orbit planet Mercury.
Source: news.blogs.cnn.com
