NASA spacecraft to fly by Mercury

From Yahoo! News: Science News:

A NASA spacecraft will fly by the planet Mercury on Monday, the first visit to the sun's closest neighbor since the 1970s. The space probe Messenger will skim 124 miles above the planet's surface, the first of three passes before it settles into orbit three years from now. The flyby will provide up-close views and, in a few weeks, pictures. "We're expecting some pretty major surprises out of this," said Faith Vilas, a Messenger scientist and director of the MMT Observatory at Mount Hopkins, Ariz.

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