MESSENGER will give us much better images of Mercury than this one!
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Courtesy of NASA

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MESSENGER mission page

MESSENGER

Do you know what MESSENGER stands for? It's the MErcury Surface Space ENvironment, GEochemistry Ranging mission! What does this mean? Well, the spacecraft will study Mercury's atmosphere, crust and polar caps.

MESSENGER is just getting started-- it won't be launched until 2004. The probe will start orbiting Mercury in 2009. The last time a probe went to Mercury was in 1975, and that was Mariner 10!

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