Mercury to be revealed..

An U.S. spacecraft was scheduled to beam hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.

The images should show scientists never-before-seen landscapes on the planet closest to the sun. The high-resolution images are scheduled to be made public at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday.

The MESSENGER spacecraft, launched in 2004, buzzed 124 miles (200 km) above Mercury's surface Monday at almost 15,000 mph.

It's the second Mercury flyby for MESSENGER -- formally known as the Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging craft.

The NASA ship is more than halfway through a five-billion-mile journey that should take it around the sun 15 times and put it into the Mercury's orbit in March 2011.

The American spacecraft Mariner 10 made flew by Mercury in 1974 and 1975, but MESSENGER is focusing on part of the planet that was not viewed then or during the craft's first pass in January.

Photos taken during its first pass showed that volcanic eruptions produced many of Mercury's plains. They also revealed that the planet has contracted more than previously thought, NASA said.

"The results from MESSENGER's first flyby of Mercury resolved debates that are more than 30 years old," said Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission's principal investigator. "This second encounter will uncover even more information about the planet."

MESSENGER's major goal is to become the first spacecraft to enter Mercury's orbit. If that happens, it should help scientist understand the composition of Mercury's surface, NASA said.

Looks just like the pics of the moon, I think it has been inhabited before.