Nasa’s Messenger spacecraft captures astounding image of Mercury before it destroys itself by smashing into planet’s surface

Pictures have been assembled from four years of data that has been sent back to Earth

Towards the end of April, the Messenger spacecraft will run out of fuel and gravity will send it smashing into Mercury and destroy it. But before then, scientists have assembled a stunning picture of what it has sent back during its four years orbiting the planet.

Since March 17, 2011, when it went into orbit, Messenger has been collecting measurements of different wavelengths of lights so that it can work out the minerals on the surface of the planet.

Scientists have put that data together with images taken from a system onboard the spacecraft, which has taken pictures of how the surface of the planet looks.

The various colours on the surface show the different wavelengths of light that have been picked up. Nasa visualises the wavelengths by converting them into red, green and blue so that the human eye can see the difference between them. The changes in colour are created by the differences on the surface.

The craters and other terrain shown is taken from the images from the Mercury Dual Imaging System, which uses cameras on Messenger to take pictures of how the land is formed on the surface.

The results from Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS), which collects hundreds of different wavelengths of light, ranging from the ultraviolet through the near-infrared, to probe the mineralogy of the surface of Mercury. Source: Nasa

The Messenger spacecraft is the first to go into orbit around Mercury. Since it did so in 2011, it has been using seven onboard scientific instruments to find out the history of the Mercury, the planet closest to the sun and the smallest in our solar system.

It has picked up over 250,000 images, as well as other pieces of data. But that will come to an end at some time near the end of April, when it flies into the surface and brings the mission to a close.