release/2.9.0 -> develop (#12150)

* move the error to after confirming it is intended to use mercury (#11897) (#11904)

(cherry picked from commit 56e24d6)

* do not call an RPC if it's not Alive (#11999)

(cherry picked from commit e78d3b8)

* Finalize date on changelog for $VERSION

Signed-off-by: Sneha Agnihotri <sneha.agnihotri@smartcontract.com>

* remove streams from sonar coverage

* Remove merge artifact in multi_node_test.go

---------

Signed-off-by: Sneha Agnihotri <sneha.agnihotri@smartcontract.com>
Co-authored-by: Lei <lei.shi@smartcontract.com>
Co-authored-by: Dmytro Haidashenko <34754799+dhaidashenko@users.noreply.github.com>

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -25,7 +25,9 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 - Minimum required version of Postgres is now >= 12. Postgres 11 was EOL'd in November 2023. Added a new version check that will prevent Chainlink from running on EOL'd Postgres. If you are running Postgres <= 11 you should upgrade to the latest version. The check can be forcibly overridden by setting SKIP_PG_VERSION_CHECK=true.
 
-## 2.9.0 - UNRELEASED
+<!-- unreleasedstop -->
+
+## 2.9.0 - 2024-02-22
 
 ### Added
 
@@ -54,8 +56,6 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   ServerPubKey = '...'
 ```
 
-<!-- unreleasedstop -->
-
 ## 2.8.0 - 2024-01-24
 
 ### Added