Today, NASA published the first pictures of Venus, as seen by the Messenger probe, heading for Mercury. In a rehearsal for the big event of meeting Mercury up close, the Messenger space probe is swinging by Venus in a slingshot maneuver that will propel it towards the smallest planet in our solar system.

NASA's spacecraft Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) is a mission launched August 3, 2004, designed to study the characteristics and environment of Mercury from orbit.

It got as close as 210 miles (338 kilometers) from Venus during the June 5 encounter and testes its Dual Imaging System on Venus, taking some interesting photos of Earth's sister planet. The images are only black-and-white, and show a cloud-shrouded Venus from up close, which is considered "huge success" by Messenger's principal investigator, Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

"Venus is enshrouded by a global cloud layer that obscures its surface to the MDIS," explained Arizona State University's Mark Robinson, a member of the Messenger science team. "This single frame is part of a color sequence taken inbound to help us calibrate the wide-angle camera in preparation for its first flyby of Mercury next January."

The best is yet to come, he added, as "over the next several months the camera team will pore over the 614 images taken during the Venus 2 encounter to adjust color sensitivity parameters and better understand the geometric properties of the instrument."

It seems that all the equipment is in perfect condition, and they transmitted quality images of a Venus seen in a rear-view mirror, that "provide a spectacular goodbye to the cloud-shrouded planet while also providing valuable data to the camera calibration team," concluded Robinson.

Messenger will be the first space probe to image the entire planet Mercury and will collect data from orbit for one Earth year, the nominal end of the primary mission.