The Messenger spacecraft sent the first orbital image of Mercury in stunning resolution.
The image (full resolution here), depicting the Debussy crater (light rays) as well as the Matabei crater (dark rays, to the west of Debussy), shows the region near the south pole of the planet – an area that has not been shown on any previous image yet. The picture was taken on March 29 at 5:20 am EDT, as part of a series that consists of a total of 363 images that are still being transferred. Over the next three days, NASA expects to receive a total of 1186 images and eventually cover the entire Mercury surface during Messenger’s 1-year orbital mission.
Messenger was launched six years ago with the goal to orbit Mercury and investigate the surface, magnetic field and composition of the solar system’s innermost planet. It follows the Mariner 10 craft, which flew by the planet in 1974 and 1975 and collected data and imagery of only about 45% of the planet’s surface. Messenger was launched in August 2004 and has flown 15 times around the sun, twice past Venus (2006 and 2007) and three times past Mercury (January 2008, October 2008 and September 2009). During the fly-bys, NASA fine-tuned Messenger’s track and speed and added more image data, which already increased the existing coverage of Mercury’s surface area to 75%.
NASA has activated the seven experiments onboard on March 24. The science phase is scheduled to begin on April 4. What makes Messenger special is that it can run its experiments almost at room temperature levels, despite the extreme temperature levels emitted by the planet’s surface. Messenger uses a heat-radiation system and will pass only briefly over Mercury’s hottest regions to limit the exposure to the intense heat. NASA estimates that the planet’s surface reaches surface temperatures of about 840 degrees F, while the floors of the deep craters at the poles never see direct sunlight and are below -276 degrees F.
On March 18, Messenger entered Mercury’s orbit and has been prepared for its critical mission since then. It is orbiting Mercury once every 12 hours at an altitude as los was 124 miles. When Messenger entered Mercury’s orbit, the craft was only about 28.7 million miles from the sun and 96.7 million miles from Earth. The total distance traveled by the spacecraft is more than 4.7 billion miles.
Messenger's First Mercury Picture
Messenger was launched six years ago with the goal to orbit Mercury and investigate the surface, magnetic field and composition of the solar system’s innermost planet. It follows the Mariner 10 craft, which flew by the planet in 1974 and 1975 and collected data and imagery of only about 45% of the planet’s surface. Messenger was launched in August 2004 and has flown 15 times around the sun, twice past Venus (2006 and 2007) and three times past Mercury (January 2008, October 2008 and September 2009). During the fly-bys, NASA fine-tuned Messenger’s track and speed and added more image data, which already increased the existing coverage of Mercury’s surface area to 75%.
NASA has activated the seven experiments onboard on March 24. The science phase is scheduled to begin on April 4. What makes Messenger special is that it can run its experiments almost at room temperature levels, despite the extreme temperature levels emitted by the planet’s surface. Messenger uses a heat-radiation system and will pass only briefly over Mercury’s hottest regions to limit the exposure to the intense heat. NASA estimates that the planet’s surface reaches surface temperatures of about 840 degrees F, while the floors of the deep craters at the poles never see direct sunlight and are below -276 degrees F.
On March 18, Messenger entered Mercury’s orbit and has been prepared for its critical mission since then. It is orbiting Mercury once every 12 hours at an altitude as los was 124 miles. When Messenger entered Mercury’s orbit, the craft was only about 28.7 million miles from the sun and 96.7 million miles from Earth. The total distance traveled by the spacecraft is more than 4.7 billion miles.
Kurt Bakke in Business on March 30
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