This week Mercury shows its best face in homage to the Messenger spacecraft, which crashed into the planet early morning April 30.
The craft was launched in August 2004 and reached Mercury in March 2011, the first to orbit the innermost planet. Since then it has circled Mercury more than 4,100 times, compiling more data in the process than everything combined before that.
Thursday, April 30, scientists at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab cut life support...