First rock from the Sun
After three decades, a new mission to Mercury is set to launch
WHEN Mariner 10 careened past Mercury in 1974 and 1975, some impressive data was collected, at least by the standards of that period. The craft was equipped with a television camera and several spectrometers. But it was able to photograph only half of the planet in any detail.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “First rock from the Sun”
From the July 24th 2004 edition
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