Planet Mercury Flyby Today.

[grober]

"AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT" from my last post about mercury in long life bulbs. About 2 hours ago the space probe Messenger passed within 124 miles of the planets surface.:bannana: It's due due to beam back the closest pictures and scientific scans of the surface of Mercury in the next 22 hours. History in the making but the world pays scant attention. The MESSENGER spacecraft will continue on its planned journey, which includes two more close flybys of Mercury in October 2008 and September 2009, before entering an orbit around Mercury in March 2011. I'm always struck by the hostility of the environment of all these planets compared to Earth. A sobering thought considering what we humans subject it to.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/status_report_01_14_08.html

 

[wallingd]

Now you see I didn't check spaceflightnow.com today and I missed something.

 

[wallingd]

From http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0801/13messenger/:

"Halfway through its 4.9-billion-mile, 6.5-year journey, Messenger is on a precise trajectory that will carry it within 126 miles of Mercury's tortured surface at 2:04 p.m. EST Monday. Streaking past the planet at more than 16,000 mph, Messenger's suite of instruments will collect some 700 gigabytes of data, including more than 1,300 photographs."

 

[bouncer]

From http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0801/13messenger/:

"Halfway through its 4.9-billion-mile, 6.5-year journey, Messenger is on a precise trajectory that will carry it within 126 miles of Mercury's tortured surface at 2:04 p.m. EST Monday. Streaking past the planet at more than 16,000 mph, Messenger's suite of instruments will collect some 700 gigabytes of data, including more than 1,300 photographs."

16,000 mph, 1300 photographs i hope that they have asked Robert Saunders how many stops to knock it back, hope they get the white balance right, may be even slow the shutter speed to get some blur as it goes past.


sTeVe

 

[grober]

this is a great simulation movie of the flyby and shows exactly how the intrument package will scan the planet. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/movies/M1_Phase_B_final_text_small.mov

No new images yet. Nice to hear a British voice describing the MDIS Mercury Dual Imaging System --one Louise Proctor of John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/prockter05.html

 

[gaz_l]

Oooh - JHU APL, I've been there. They do get up to some interesting stuff..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[grober]

I Bet No-one Seen This Before!

Well here it is. The side of Mercury no-one has seen before. Its 33 years since man was this close to the planet. Its not often you can post a picture on the forum and confidently say " I bet no one in the world has seen this before!"
OK it looks like a rather old bowling ball but still--makes you think!