NASA’s Messenger spacecraft has crashed into the surface of Mercury (बुध), ending its historic 11-year mission that provided valuable data and thousands of images of the planet.
Details:
- Messenger, launched on August 3, 2004, began orbiting Mercury on March 18, 2011.
- The spacecraft completed its primary science objectives by March 2012.
- It was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.
- Because Messenger’s initial discoveries raised important new questions and the payload remained healthy,
- The mission was extended twice.
- With no way to increase its altitude, Messenger was unable to resist the perturbations to its orbit by the sun’s gravitational pull and slammed into Mercury’s surface at around 14,000 kmph, creating a crater up to 52 feet wide.
- The MESSENGER mission was designed to study the characteristics and environment of Mercury from orbit.
Sources: The Hindu, NASA.
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