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One Day to Pluto: Looking Back at Humanity's First-Time Successful Encounters With the Sun's PlanetsTomorrow’s historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto and its binary companion, Charon, will mark the completion of humanity’s first-time exploration of each of the Solar System’s nine traditional planets. Photo Credit: NASA Tomorrow, the United States will become the first nation to have conducted a close-range reconnaissance of all nine “traditional” planets […] The MESSENGER spacecraft, depicted in this artist’s rendering, began studying Mercury in 2011. Today, its mission ended with its impact on the far side of the planet. Image Credit: NASA Here’s MESSENGER by the numbers: Years since launching: 10+; Years in Mercury’s orbit: Four; Number of orbits: 4,105; Size of its impact crater: […] A global map of Mercury, composed of thousands of individual images from MESSENGER. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington One of the most oft-repeated quotes in the English lexicon is: “There’s no place like home.” One spacecraft’s long journey, begun in 2004, will end as it impacts upon […] Shown in red are areas of Mercury’s north polar region that are constantly in shadow in every image that the MESSENGER spacecraft has acquired to date. These areas are rich in water ice, despite the planet’s close proximity to the sun. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy […] |
 Next Launch Transporter-1 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral AFB, FL scheduled for: 24 Jan 21 at 15:00 GMT 24 Jan 21 at 10:00am Eastern 
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