Access

Feature

Nature Geoscience 1, 564 (1 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/ngeo297

Mercury redux

Moritz Heimpel & Konstantin Kabin

The Mercury flyby of the MESSENGER (Mercury surface, space environment, geochemistry and ranging) probe was the first of three braking manoeuvres for the spacecraft, in preparation for its insertion into a polar orbit in 2011. The probe achieved the closest approach (201 km) of Mercury's surface yet, and took a variety of measurements in the magnetosphere, exosphere and on Mercury's surface.