MESSENGER just passed closest approach!

I've been Tweeting away today as MESSENGER zoomed in for its flyby; it just now passed closest approach, zooming past at an altitude of 228 kilometers and a relative speed of more than 19,000 kilometers per hour, firing the laser on its laser altimeter all the time.

a href="http://twitter.com/elakdawalla" target="messenger">Follow me on Twitter for the up-to-the-minute status, check out the MESSENGER Dynamic Visualization, and Daniel Muller's realtime simulation. And check out my timeline for a detailed explanation of what's going on when, and why.