CANADA: The NASA spacecraft that launched in 2004 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and became the first to orbit Mercury in 2011 is on course to crash into the planet’s surface April 30 at more than 8,700 mph.
“Messenger is going to create a new crater on Mercury at some point in the very near future,” said John Grunsfeld, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Rather than be sad about that, we really are celebrating just a fantastic mission.”
Messenger is short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging.
Mission scientists today said the spacecraft’s mapping of the planet and discoveries about its makeup have reshaped understanding of Mercury and ideas about how early planets formed.
For example, Messenger confirmed the existence of ice deposits made of water at the poles of the planet closest to the sun.
Those deposits are covered by a mysterious dark layer of what could be organic material delivered by the same objects that brought the water ice.
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