Mercury - the smallest and closest planet to the Sun Solar System. As the inner planet is the earthly observer always very close to the Sun , so it is difficult to observe. Although it belongs to the planets visible to the naked eye and was known in antiquity. You can only see Mercury just before sunrise or just after sunset .
Compared with the other planets of the solar system with Mercury know relatively little , due to the technical problems it examined so far only two probes . The first of them - Mariner 10 - made in 1974-1975 45 % of the map . Then the MESSENGER spacecraft during the first flight January 14, 2008 illustrated the additional 30 % of the surface of the planet. MESSENGER approached Mercury again on Oct. 6, 2008 , and for the third time on Sept. 29, 2009 . After these overflights photographed was already 98 % of the area , but partly under unfavorable lighting conditions , unfavorable topography observations [ 7]. In March 2011, the probe entered orbit in order to explore and map the globe implementation [ 8].
