MESSENGER is the first spacecraft to visit orbit Mercury. Since March 17, 2011, it has captured over 270,000 images and other extensive data sets. But its mission is almost over; with no propellant, the craft will now succumb to the force of solar gravity and hit the surface of Mercury at some point tomorrow. The collision is expected to create a crater approximately 52-feet wide (16 meters). For comparison, that’s about the size of the smallest craters visible in this shot (below) of Mercury’s surface.
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