After a 30-year gap, all eyes are back on Mercury as the MESSENGER probe gives us our second glance at the Sun's nearest neighbour. Hints of intriguing results to come are already at hand.rnOn 10 March, scientists from MESSENGER, NASA's mission to the planet Mercury, reported their first observations of the planet at the annual conference of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The probe - its name stands for 'Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging'- was launched from Cape Canaveral on 3 August 2004. Its goal is to orbit the Solar System's innermost planet, and thus answer 30-year-old questions raised when the Mariner 10 spacecraft flew past the planet three times during 1974 and 1975.
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