On Thursday at 15:26, NASA’s mission to the innermost planet of the solar system ended dramatically. The drone crashed into Mercury at 8700 miles per hour.
When an unmanned vehicle in orbit of Mercury since 2011 completed the last orbit around the planet, scientists suggested that the probe would break on the northeast slope of the ancient Shakespeare crater. At the moment, NASA has not provided confirmation of the exact location of the fall of the device.
A few minutes before the deadly meeting with the surface of the planet, the instant messenger tweeted his last message with the following content: “I think it’s time to say goodbye to all my friends, relatives and the team that supported me. Soon I will make a fatal encounter with the planet. ” This message appeared on Twitter just a few minutes before hitting the surface.
NASA's department for deep-space research confirmed the loss of a signal from a vehicle that was operating in Mercury orbit. The signal disappeared at the expected time of the Messenger crash. Communication with the spacecraft was made at the Goldstone Observatory, located in the Mojave Desert, California. The mission lasted from 2004, it was then that the Messenger was sent from Earth to space. The orbit of Mercury apparatus reached in 2011. For 4 years of fruitful work in the orbit of the planet, the world has learned a lot of new information, tremendous discoveries were made concerning not only Mercury, but also the origin of the entire Solar System.
John Grunsfeld, assistant to the head of the Scientific Mission, in a press release held a little earlier in Washington, said that thanks to the work of an unmanned spacecraft, for the first time in history, mankind learned a tremendous amount of information about Mercury. The mission showed the wonderful world of this planet, which is part of our solar system. According to him, this is a truly successful mission, after which work on analyzing the data will continue, with a view to further uncover the secrets of Mercury.
The death of the messenger on the distant Mercury did not become the final. Many fans of this mission, knowing that the device fell on the slope of the Shakespeare crater, remind of the lost apparatus in social networks, using excerpts from the works of William Shakespeare.
