On Monday, for the second time this year, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft will fly by the hot, cratered surface of the planet Mercury. The craft will come within 125 miles to take pictures and gather data while it uses the gravitational pull of the little orb to keep it on the right track for it’s mission to eventually become the first thing to orbit Mercury in 2011.

Mercury's magnetic field is about 100 times weaker than that of the Earth - a curiosity that scientists have been trying to make sense of for years.

Recent observations of Mercury's rotation suggest that the planet has a partially molten core, and scientists at the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University developed laboratory experiments to model what might be happening beneath the surface.

The 1,213 photos of Mercury taken by NASA's Messenger probe, and released yesterday, back up some previously held ideas about the planet, while also raising new questions.

There are great things to come in the future, jet cars and all that. But the past held a few wonders too-for example, jars of mercury available at the corner apothecary. Just 50 years ago, people treated the shiny
liquid metal like a toy. Sadly, I´ll never experience the strange sensation of sticking my entire arm into a barrel of mercury, as kids once did during factory tours. Today mercury is considered a horrific poison, so bad that schools are evacuated for
a broken thermometer.