... A Spider Shaped Crater on Mercury . ... When the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft glided by the planet Mercury last month, it was able to image portions of the Sun's closest planet that had never been seen before. ... Asteroid 2007 TU24 Passes the Earth . ... Because Mercury orbits so close to the Sun, it never wanders far from the Sun in Earth's sky. ... Hard to spot against the twilight glow near planet Earth's horizon, a crescent Mercury was imaged close up by the MESSENGER spacecraft early last week...