NASA's Messenger probe made its second pass by Venus on Tuesday afternoon, the maneuver will help guide the spacecraft on its circuitous journey to Mercury and give scientists a close-up look at Earth's cloud-shrouded neighbor.

The fly-by gave researchers the rare opportunity to pair with a European spacecraft studying Venus.

"This is the first time that we are able to take observations from two different vantage points."

Messenger is the seventh in NASA's Discovery program of lower-cost, scientifically focused space missions.

If successful, Messenger, launched in August 2004, would be the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, arriving in 2011. The spacecraft cannot fly straight to Mercury because it isn't carrying enough fuel, so it is flying once past Earth, twice past Venus and three times past Mercury for gravity assists before slowing enough to slip into orbit around the small, hot planet.

"We will get lots of data."

via cnn.com