Crash Landing on Mercury Expected for Spacecraft

A NASA spacecraft that made surprising discoveries of ice and other materials on Mercury will make a crash landing on the planet about April 30, scientists said Thursday. The MESSENGER probe (Mercury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) has been circling the innermost planet of the solar system for more than four years, the first close-up studies of Mercury since NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft made three flybys in the mid-1970s. Out of fuel and losing altitude,...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - jeudi 16 avril 2015