Yesterday the Messenger probe entered orbit around the planet Mercury, and has returned the first ever images from an orbit around the planet

This weekthe Messenger space probe entered an orbit around the inner planet Mercury.

This is the first image returned to Earth, taken from an orbit around the planet. The large ray-crater in the top of the image is the crater Debussey

Bellow is an extreme closeup of the Debussy crater

Here is the first-ever images of Mercurys north pole

Below is the 40+km large Machaut crater. In comparison the largest crater on the Earth facing side of the Moon Clavius is only 120km wide

MORE IMAGES on Messengers homepage