Bruce Murray Space Image Library

MESSENGER departs Mercury

MESSENGER departs Mercury
MESSENGER departs Mercury These nine images were captured by MESSENGER as it departed from its third flyby of Mercury. The spacecraft had gone in to safe mode at closest approach, but on October 3, 2009 it restarted science activities, which included monitoring how Mercury's appearance in different colored filters varies with the phase angle (the angle from Sun, to Mercury, to spacecraft). NASA / JHUAPL / CIW