FROM TODAY'S PRINT EDITIONS:
The planet Mercury will be in the headlines a week from today, as scientists and engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab try to put NASA’s Messenger spacecraft into orbit around it. If they’re successful, Messenger will stay for a year of scientific study. It would be the first time a spacecraft from Earth has orbited the planet. Mercury will be visible to the naked eye next week, in a close conjunction with Jupiter, low in the west after sunset, Sunday through Wednesday.
(IMAGE: NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Institution)