NASA spacecraft now circling Mercury

NASA`s spacecraft called Messenger successfully veered into a pinpoint orbit yesterday night after a 6 1/2-year trip and 4.9 billion miles (79 billion kilometres) and tricky manoeuvring to fend off the gravitational pull of the sun.

It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon.

"It was right on the money," Messenger`s chief engineer, Eric Finnegan, said.

Messenger is in orbit that brings it as close as 120 miles (193 kilometres) above the planet`s surface. "This is as close you can possibly get to being perfect."

"Everybody was whooping and hollering; we are elated," Finnegan said. "There`s a lot of work left to be done, but we are there."

Mercury is not only difficult to get to, but it`s has some of the most extremes in the solar system. Temperatures there swing wildly by 1,100 degrees. While it gets up to 800 degrees on the planet closest to the sun, it also is so cold and dark in some craters that the temperatures don`t get above 300 degrees below zero.

Radar even shows that there is likely frozen ice in those craters, something Messenger will try to confirm.

In the 1970s, NASA sent a spacecraft, Mariner, whizzing by Mercury, but only got pictures of less than half of the tiny rock. Robert Strom of the University of Arizona was a scientist on the Mariner and current Messenger missions and he said for a while he thought he wouldn`t get a second peek at the eccentric Mercury.

"I am just so thrilled," Strom said by telephone minutes after NASA confirmed that Messenger was in orbit.

"Thirty-six years waiting for this day. It`s just unbelievable."

Strom said he and all his colleagues were nervous as the desk-sized spacecraft automatically shifted into an egg-shaped orbit, with controllers on Earth unable to change commands because it took eight minutes for signals to travel the approximately 100 million miles (160 million kilometres)from Mercury to Earth.