The Messenger probe will reach Mercury today around 2pm and immediately start sending back images. Unless it forgets to slow down or something, which is not without precedent.
Messenger took this video as it left Earth:
UPDATE: It forgot to slow down, but it was supposed to. Although the probe reached Mercury today, it's moving way too fast to just park itself in orbit. It's going to whip back out towards Venus a few more times to slow down, and eventually settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011 (!). Stupid laws of physics. No, no, I love them.
Monday, January 14, 2008
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