[NormsRevenge]

MESSENGER
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php

March 17, 2011
MESSENGER Begins Historic Orbit around Mercury
At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers in the MESSENGER Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., received the anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the planet Mercury.

[NormsRevenge]

First Orbital Image Planned for March 29
Release Date: March 14, 2011
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=429

..
This first planned image is scheduled to be taken on March 29, 2011, 7:40 UTC, or 3:40 am EDT. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER will acquire 364 images in total before beginning to downlink the data to Earth.
..

[GeronL]

cool.

[qam1]

Cant wait for the pics of the poles

[the invisib1e hand]

This must be doing wonders for Islamic self-esteem.

[Jack Hammer]

Uh... this may be a dumb question, but if it’s ninety-three million miles to the sun, why is it four and a half billion miles to Mercury...?

[garjog]

[theDentist]

"Can someone land it in the shopping mall
next to where the astronauts first planted
an American flag during the 7th Lunar Landing?"

[dfwgator]

When will it circle Uranus?