NASA's Mercury-orbiting spacecraft, Messenger, is going out with a bang this week, adding a hefty crater to the little planet closest to the sun. The first spacecraft to circle Mercury, Messenger is ...

Jan. 31 marks the day Ham, a chimpanzee, was launched into sub-orbital space in a Mercury capsule aboard a Redstone rocket to ...

A European-Japanese space mission will reach Mercury in 2026, carrying instruments designed to answer a question that has quietly unsettled planetary science for decades: how does a planet like this ...

On Aug. 3, 2004, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft on a historic first mission to orbit the planet Mercury. The spacecraft's name stands for the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry ...

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, CA – November 28, 2025 – Proteus Space announced the successful launch and first contact of MERCURY ONE, its inaugural four-payload ESPA class spacecraft. MERCURY ONE ...

Those were the words Alan Shepard used 60 years ago Wednesday to note his cockpit timepiece had begun running. This meant his Redstone rocket booster had left the ground sending him and his one-man ...

Mercury reaches its peak evening visibility this February, offering Northern Hemisphere observers a longer post-sunset viewing window, higher altitude and a crescent moon reference.

Stargazing in February: Mercury – a planet of extremes - It may look like the Moon, but Mercury has many more secrets, Nigel ...