NASA spacecraft soars past Mercury

Washington (ANTARA News/afp) - A US space probe successfully flew by Mercury on Monday to photograph the solar system's smallest planet, in the second of three planned passes, the US space agency NASA said. The spacecraft MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) flew past the innermost planet at an altitude of 201 kilometers (125 miles) at a speed of 23,818 kilometers per hour (14,800 miles per hour). "Everything went well as planned," said spokeswoman Helen Johnson of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory which is running the MESSENGER project. The first pictures from MESSENGER's bypass were expected to be available at 1400 GMT, with 1,200 images of the cratered surface to be seen. MESSENGER first flew past Mercury on January 14 this year, and will make its final pass in... [read full story]