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Messenger Spacecraft Prepared for Mercury

Posted by michael on from the spf-5000 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's first orbiter to the planet Mercury is shown today in cut-away, revealing the parasol design that will protect it from intense heat. Twenty layers of aluminized Kapton will be its sunshade. Curiously since the innermost planet is so close to the Sun, the Mercury mission itself will look for (cometary) water-ice preserved on the less baked north pole."

1 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe interesting... by Tagren · · Score: 1, Redundant
    from http://www.nineplanets.org/venus.html
    There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulfuric acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus' surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.

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