Abstract
A NASA spacecraft is again testing a creationist theory about the magnetic fields of planets. On 14 January 2008, the Messenger spacecraft, made by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA, flew by Mercury, the innermost planet of the solar system, in the first of several close encounters before it finally settles into a steady orbit around Mercury in 2011. As it passed, its 'magnetometer' made quick measurements of Mercury's magnetic field and transmitted them successfully back to Earth. It will probably take the Messenger team several months to process the magnetic data accurately.