NASA’s Messenger in place to spy on Mercury

FOR the first time, Earth has a regular, orbiting eye-in-the-sky spying on the solar system’s smallest and strangest planet, Mercury.

After a six-and-a-half year trip, over 4.9 billion miles, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft has successfully fended off the sun and veered into a pinpoint orbit with the planet.

It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon.