BOULDER — An $8.7 million instrument built in Boulder will zip around planet Mercury on Monday at 141,000 mph.
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, bearing a University of Colorado at Boulder spectrometer, will fly around the hot little planet in the first of three flybys before the spacecraft settles into an orbit around Mercury in 2011.
The only other spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA’s Mariner 10, which flew near the planet in 1974 and 1975, mapping part of the hot, rocky surface.
MESSENGER, which stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging mission, will give scientists a closer look at the planet’s surface composition and thin atmosphere. Dozens of undergraduates and graduate students at CU-Boulder will be involved in analyzing MESSENGER data, according to CU.
