NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft slammed into the surface of Mercury April 30, bringing a groundbreaking mission to a dramatic end. The $450 million MESSENGER probe crashed at 3:26 p.m. EDT, gouging a new crater into Mercury's heavily pockmarked surface. This violent demise was inevitable for MESSENGER, which had been orbiting Mercury since March 2011 and had run out of fuel. The 3-meter-wide spacecraft was traveling about 14,080 kilometers per hour at the time of impact, and it likely created a smoking hole in the ground about 16 meters wide in Mercury's northern terrain, NASA officials said. No instruments witnessed the crash, which occurred on the opposite side of Mercury from Earth.
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