Mercury: and one makes 3!

Yesterday, 29 September 2009, Messenger passed by Mercury for the third time. With this flyby at an altitude of 246 km, NASA’s probe is now on a trajectory that will finally enable it to begin orbiting the planet closest to the Sun on 18 March 2011. This flyby was also the occasion to study this world using the onboard instruments. The images and data gathered are to be released on 1 October, at a conference that is to be held in the Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory (in a town called Laurel in Maryland). The above image was taken on 29 September whilst the probe was still 26,900 km from Mercury.

Mission page devoted to flyby 3

1 October Conference (PDF)

Published on 30 September 2009

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