This week, NASA released the first images that its Messenger probe sent back after it went into orbit around the solar system's innermost planet, Mercury. These weren't the first images taken of Mercury from a spacecraft, nor even the first images of Mercury taken by Messenger, which had passed by the planet several times as it maneuvered into orbit. So why is entering orbit a big deal?
In some ways, going into orbit means we're there to learn instead of simply discover. We picked up remarkable things as the Voyagers shot past the outer planets in our solar system, but the rapid flybys tended to provide a limited, static image of the planets they visited. When we returned with later orbiters, we got to track things like changing seasons on the planets and their moons, the evolution of their rings, and changes in their atmospheres. If one pass yields something interesting, it's possible to go back around and have another look.
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