Space for the day

Tessa Berenson has a Time article about Messenger's fate:

NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, which had been orbiting Mercury since 2011, ended its mission by running out of fuel and crashing into the planet.
Slooh astronomer Bob Berman said, in a news release about the crash: “Simply watching Mercury is always special and exciting, since it’s so close to the Sun. Even the great Copernicus said he’d never seen it. But watching it close-up while the Messenger spacecraft meets its doom will be a poignant experience that I’m glad we’re sharing with the public.”
According to Slooh, Messenger orbited Mercury more than four thousand times since its launch and mapped the inner planet, discovered water in the exosphere, and found evidence of past volcanic activity, among other discoveries. In 2014, Messenger also uncovered signs of an annual meteor shower on Mercury.

Rico says space continues to amaze...