MESSENGER’s flyby a success!

My fab friend Emily is reporting that the Venus flyby was a success for the MESSENGER probe! Yay! While it rounded the planet the probe took lots of data, but they won't be sent back to Earth until July June 7. Then the next step is the first Mercury flyby in January 2008, leading to a series of encounters that'll settle the probe into orbit by 2011. Space exploration is hard, and takes a long time, but it's just so cool! More info here.