For the first time, Earth has a regular orbiting eye-in-the-sky spying on the solar system's smallest and strangest planet, Mercury. NASA's spacecraft called Messenger successfully veered into a pinpoint orbit Thursday night after a 6 1/2-year trip and 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) and tricky manoeuvering to fend off the gravitational pull of the sun.
It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon. "It was right on the money," Messenger's chief engineer, Eric Finnegan, said. Messenger is in orbit that brings it as close as 120 miles (193 kilometers) above the planet's surface.
"This is as close you can possibly get to being perfect."
"Everybody was whooping and hollering; we are elated," Finnegan said. "There's a lot of work left to be done, but we are there." Mercury is not only difficult to get to, but it's has some of the most extremes in the solar system.