Planetary Society logo
  • “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan

MESSENGER gets closer to Mercury

Emily Lakdawalla

Written by Emily Lakdawalla
October 5, 2008

Here's the fifth of those optical navigation shots that MESSENGER's taking as it approaches Mercury (click to enlarge to see the details):

MESSENGER approaches Mercury

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW

MESSENGER approaches Mercury
This is the fifth of MESSENGER's optical navigation images of Mercury during its approach to its second flyby, taken on October 5, 2008, from a distance of 690,000 kilometers.
MESSENGER departs Mercury

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW / Eric Landrenau

MESSENGER departs Mercury
This approximately true color view of Mercury was created by manipulation of the color space of the false-color official release from the MESSENGER team. The image was captured as MESSENGER departed its first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. Caloris is a large bright basin in the top half of the image. Tolstoj is a dark-ringed impact structure, highly foreshortened at about 4:00 on the limb.

Earth's First Line of Defense

Support the team of astronomers defending Earth with a gift today.

Donate