News From Off Earth

There's a lot of troubling news from around the world right now, but looking for better things where I can find them, even if it may not really help anyone, I did hear something positive happened off the planet. After a long trip trading off the speed built up falling in towards the sun, the MESSENGER probe is now in orbit around Mercury. That does remind me of how I was very interested to hear about its first flyby of Mercury, when it saw part of the surface that hadn't been in the sun during Mariner 10's flybys in the mid-1970s. Even so, given the official intent of the probe was to spend time around Mercury, going into orbit was something I was waiting for and wondering about. At the same time, I'm also conscious about how I don't quite keep up with the Cassini probe's orbital tour of Saturn the way I used to.