Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

MESSENGER is the first mission where a space craft has been sent to orbit Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. On October 6th 2008 at 04:40 the probe came within 200km of the toastie planet’s surface and took as many pictures as it could.

NASA is hoping that the probe will be in full orbit around the planet by 2011 and that MESSENGER will be Mercury’s first artificial satelite.

The very bright crater just south of the equator is Kuiper which was identified using photos from the 1970s. The area east of Kuiper has never been photographed, until MESSENGER.