Messenger Probe Becomes First To Orbit Mercury

By Frank Morring, Jr. .

Engineers at the Applied Physics Laboratory are checking out the systems on NASA’s Messenger probe after it became the first manmade object to enter orbit around the planet Mercury March 17.

Officials at the lab, a unit of the Johns Hopkins University, confirmed the probe had entered orbit at 9:10 p.m. EDT, when operators received signals indicating its ...

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