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Spacecraft Sends First Image From Mercury's Orbit

Posted by samzenpus on from the hot-pictures dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "NASA released an image of Mercury captured by its Messenger spacecraft — the first ever obtained from the planet's orbit. The first image came in at 5:20am Eastern yesterday, and over the next six hours, Messenger captured an additional 363 images, which are still being transmitted to the Messenger team on Earth. In the next three days, the spacecraft will capture another 1,185 images, with the goal of snapping 75,000 over the next year."

4 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Readers beware: it's actually a map of Uranus.

  2. Umm yeah... by sdguero · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here are the actual photos: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/

  3. WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    No atmosphere, and less craters than the Moon. Lame.

  4. Re:What have astronauts done lately? by Unkyjar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While there may not be a lot of exploration and discovery, it doesn't mean that there isn't any science being done.

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/List.html

    Maybe they need flashier experiments?