Mercury

A camera aboard NASA's MESSENGER (The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) probe snapped this image of crater-scarred Mercury on January 13, 2008, at a distance of about 470,000 miles from the closest planet to the sun. The spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet on January 14, 2008, passing about 126 miles above the rocky, crater-scarred surface, scientists said. The only previous times Mercury was visited by a spacecraft were in 1974 and 1975 when NASA's Mariner 10 flew past it three times and mapped about 45 percent of its surface. MESSENGER is scheduled to pass Mercury again this October and in September 2009 before beginning a planned yearlong orbit of the planet in March 2011. REUTERS/NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Handout