Mercury Flyby Sets Stage for New Discoveries

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New terrain on Mercury revealed by MESSENGERs cameras during the Jan. 14 2008 flyby. Caloris Basin is circled.
New terrain on Mercury revealed by MESSENGER's cameras during the Jan. 14, 2008, flyby. Caloris Basin is circled.

"Discoveries are at hand!" That's what members of the MESSENGER science team are saying after their spacecraft flew past Mercury on Jan. 14th at a distance of only 124 miles. The historic flyby netted 500 megabytes of data (now safely downloaded to Earth) and more than 1200 photos covering nearly six million square miles of previously unseen terrain.


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