Guillaume de Machaut

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Gallery: Fleet-Footed Flyby Reveals Mercury?s Unseen Surface

: Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonWASHINGTON, D.C. -- The first mission sent to orbit Mercury flew by the planet closest to the sun for the second time earlier this month, capturing images of most of its previously unseen surface. On Oct. 6, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft, or Messenger, passed just 125 miles above Mercury and took more than 1,200 pictures of its heavily cratered surface. During the second of three scheduled flybys, the probe used Mercury's gravity to alter its path, which will help it eventually settle into orbit around the planet in 2011. A briefing about the early scientific findings from the mission will be shown live in a NASA Television webcast Oct. 29 at 1 p.m. EDT. Left: During its approach to the solar system's innermost planet, NASA's Messenger probe took this image of a crescent Mercury. The spacecraft was still an hour and a half from its closest encounter when it imaged this terrain, which hadn't been seen on Messenger's first flyby or by the Mariner 10 spacecraft, which flew by Mercury in 1974 and 1975. The image is one of a set of 11 taken through different filters to study the colors of the surface.: Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonThis image, taken as Messenger flew away from its closest approach to Mercury, was one of the first to be sent back to Earth. The bright spot near the center of the image is Kuiper crater. Most of the terrain to the east of Kuiper had never been seen before. A striking characteristic of this newly imaged area is the large pattern of rays that extend from a relatively young crater in the northern region of Mercury to south of Kuiper. : Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonJust an hour before Messenger reached its closest approach to Mercury, the probe took this close-up picture of a heavily cratered terrain in an area that had never before been imaged. The features in the foreground, near the right side of the image, are close to the line between the sunlit day side and dark night side of the planet, so shadows are long and prominent and make the topography stand out.: Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonThe sun's slanting rays illuminate Machaut crater in this image. The crater, named for the medieval French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut, is about 60 miles across. The floor of the crater has been coated with lava, which has in turn been peppered with more small craters. : Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonThis shot was taken just minutes after Messenger passed its closest point to the surface of Mercury, while the spacecraft was moving at 3.8 miles per second. It is the highest resolution color image ever taken of the planet. The largest crater, near the top of the photo, is called Polygnotus and is 83 miles in diameter.