Discovery of Mercury's Rembrandt Crater

Date: October 6, 2008 • Location: Rome, Italy

The MESSENGER probe discovered Mercury's Rembrandt (pictured) – the second largest impact crater on the planet.

MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is an acronym for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, and a reference to the messenger god Mercury from Roman mythology.