Saturday, August 23, 2014

Mercury - Mariner 10, Messenger


We just learned about the space travel to Venus on the space crafts Venera 7-16, Mariner 10, Pioneer Venus

We have sent space crafts to study Mercury through the years, but it's difficult because it is closer to the sun.

The first space craft that was sent up was Mariner 10 on November 2nd, 1973.
It was sent mostly just to fly by Mercury and study the sky and look at the land.

The next space craft was called Messenger, launched August 3rd, 2004.
The letters in the name stand for: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, Ranging.

It took almost 7 years for it to get to Mercury, and it orbited the planet for 2 years taking pictures.
It took close to 100,000 pictures of the whole planet!
mercury messenger
(from: wikipedia - messenger)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Yellow Dwarf