First Light on the Innermost World | Mariner 10

On March 29, 1974, a spacecraft the size of a compact car arrives at the planet closest to our Sun — a world no human eye has ever seen up close — and for a few breathless hours, humanity gets its first look. What Mariner 10 finds on Mercury's ancient, cratered face rewrites everything scientists thought they knew. Fifty years later, those first impossible images still feel like stolen light.

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