NASA's Messenger spacecraft blazed past the planet Mercury on Monday during the first of a series of rendezvous.

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On 18 March, Nasa spacecraft Messenger will make history by becoming the first to orbit the planet Mercury.

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In addition, Messenger will use this lap around Mercury to help put the spacecraft on a trajectory to help it return to orbit around the planet permanently by 2011.

NPR: New Images May Shed Light on Mercury's Mysteries

It was a delta-v opposite to the direction of travel and that slowed Messenger enough so the relatively weak gravity of Mercury could capture the spacecraft and put it into an elliptical orbit around the planet rather than the Sun.

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That signal means a giant antenna in California heard Messenger's dial tone, systems engineer Michael Paul said, and the spacecraft was amazingly on target.

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