Messenger closes in on Mercury crash-landing

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32510911

Messenger closes in on Mercury crash-landing
By Jonathan Webb
Science reporter, BBC News

After more than a decade in space and four years orbiting Mercury, Nasa's Messenger mission is set to finally come to an explosive end. The spacecraft is expected to crash into the planet's surface at 20:46 BST on Thursday; its last fuel was burnt in a final manoeuvre on 24 April.
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During its twice-extended mission, Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) transformed our understanding of Mercury. It sent back more than 270,000 images and 10 terabytes of scientific measurements. It found evidence for water ice hiding in the planet's shadowy polar craters, and discovered that Mercury's magnetic field is bizarrely off-centre, shifted along the planet's axis by 10% of its diameter.
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Earlier this month, mission scientists released fresh images which superimposed years of spectrometry data about the chemistry of the planet's surface, illustrated by different colours, onto black-and-white images built up from thousands of smaller MDIS photos. The planet has been mapped and studied to a level of detail far beyond the original mission plan. Many of the results themselves have also been surprising.
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Despite being able to look back with pride, Dr Raines said this is still a sad day for Messenger scientists. "Pretty much all the instruments are still doing great, so that makes it a little harder," he told BBC News. But the mission was always going to be limited by the fuel needed to maintain its difficult orbit. To be honest, I've seen this day coming for a long time and it's just one of these things that I've not been looking forward to. I'm really going to be sad to see it go."

[Warren DeMontague]

1. FIRST WE BOMBED THE MOON, NOW THIS

WHAT ABOUT OUR MERCURIAN STAR FRIENDS?