14.7 day old Moon
100 percent lit
May 2, 2015
By Amina Kahn
It’s official: (click here) NASA’s Messenger spacecraft has ended its mission to Mercury with a bang.
The spacecraft ended its four years in orbit by smashing into the tiny planet’s surface sometime around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, scientists confirmed Friday. That time and the crash’s location are a best guess, because Messenger crashed on the far side of Mercury, with no way to phone home.
“On behalf of MESSENGER, thank you all for your support,” officials tweeted from the mission’s Twitter account. “We will continue to update you on our great discoveries. We will miss it.”
Even though the spacecraft met its end alone, scientists in the mission control room at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland said they mourned the passing of the spacecraft, whose observations have significantly altered our understanding of the sun-scorched little planet....
