Messenger at Mercury in 2 Days

Nothing to show at this point (except some distant calibration images), but Messenger will arrive at Mercury on January 14th. This is the first visit to the tiniest planet since 1973. On that visit the Mariner spacecraft flew by the same region 3 different times — therefore leaving more than 50% of this planet yet unseen by human eyes. With the arrival of Messenger, most of what has not yet been imaged will be revealed in 2 more additional flybys and surely 100% will be revealed once Messenger achieves orbital insertion in 2011. With the exception of Pluto and its partner Charon, Mercury represents one of the largest pieces of real estate not yet mapped or imaged by some kind of probe in all our solar system.