IN SPACE: In this handout from NASA, the surface of Mercury is seen in a picture taken by NASA's Messenger spacecraft as it approached the planet January 14, 2008. The image was taken from about 11,000 miles from the planet and shows a region 300 miles across. Messenger will make two other passes by Mercury before settling into orbit around the planet closest to the Sun in 2011. (Photo by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington via Getty Images)