Messenger sends back trove of Mercury images

NASA begins releasing images from the first spacecraft to orbit the closest planet to the sun, including polar regions that might contain ice. After a 6 1/2 -year wait as a small craft voyaged through space, planetary scientists finally got an up-close look at Mercury's pockmarked surface this week — at the pale, spidery impact crater named Debussy, at chains of smaller craters around the north pole they'd never seen before and at other heretofore mysterious polar regions.

Read full article Share article