The long-anticipated BepiColombo mission is entering its decisive phase. Launched in 2018, this joint endeavor between the ...

Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission ...

NASA’s MESSENGER probe has become the first spacecraft to enter orbit about Mercury. At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers in the MESSENGER Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- MESSENGER scientists will highlight the latest results on Mercury from MESSENGER observations obtained during the first six months (the first Mercury solar day) in orbit. These ...

Turns out, it's as tough to drop inward into the inner solar system, as it is to head outward. The problem stems from losing momentum from a launch starting point on Earth. It can take missions ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – The only spacecraft ever to orbit Mercury ended its four-year tour with a crash landing Thursday. NASA’s Messenger plunged from orbit as planned and slammed into the sun’s ...

After more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system and six planetary flybys, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft will move into orbit around Mercury on at around 9 p.m. EDT on March 17, 2011. The ...

NASA has sent the very first spacecraft into an orbit around Mercury, the closest planet on our solar system to the Sun. Now that it is there, NASA’s satellite MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ...

NASA’s first-ever Mercury orbiter MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) sent back this image of the hot planet. The shot looks a bit like the moon: barren with lots ...

NASA's Messenger mission unveiled the first picture of the planet Mercury taken by an orbiting spacecraft on Tuesday, and promised to provide more goodies in the days and months to come. The picture ...

Compared to Mars and Venus, Mercury may not be the most famous of the solar system's planets. But in truth, it is a treasure — as the smallest and nearest planet to the Sun, it is a truly rare sight ...

The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed its first orbit-correction maneuver today to reset its periapsis altitude – the lowest point of MESSENGER’s orbit about Mercury relative to the planet’s ...