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Messenger Flies by Mercury

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-in-the-sun dept.

Riding with Robots writes "Today, more than three decades after the last spacecraft visited Mercury, Messenger buzzed just 200 kilometers above the planet's surface. During the encounter, the robotic spacecraft conducted a range of scientific observations, including imaging swaths of Mercury's surface that have never been seen up close before. A few of the first pictures are now available, with many more to come in the next few days."

8 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Three Cheers for NASA! by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hats off to the folks who put this together. I was in high school the last time we saw any closeup pictures of Mercury. Every time we send probes to other panets we find out really cool stuff. Messenger should be no exception.

    If we can't go there ourselves, we can send robots. Robots are cool. :-)

    ...laura

  2. Re:Oops... by Inda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In Quîndecimber?

    14 months is a long time to wait.

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    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  3. Re:Correction by the_other_chewey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The first images from the close approach will not be available until 01/05/08

    Could we please use unambiguous date formatting?
    Something like YYYY-MM-DD?
    I guess you actually meant 2008-01-15 with a typo.

  4. Re:Again? by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just as in Biology, a lot of what is observed in Astronomy is what's big, pretty, and easy. Venus and Mercury are two planets that are largely unappealing by normal standards - way too hot, completely dead and barren. It's always good to see good science being done for the sake of science, not public opinion. Cassini and the rovers were fantastic, but the less glamorous missions are just as important to our understanding.

    --
    I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
  5. Re:Photos are FAKE by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

    stare for a tenth of a second at the Sun through 8x binoculars. then you will have some idea why a camera that can image mercury's sunlit surface can't detect stars.

  6. Re:Correction by the_other_chewey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How is 2008-01-05 unambiguous?

    ISO 8601.
    Additionally, I'm completely unaware of anyone or anyplace using
    YYYY-DD-MM as a date format, and my googleing seems to confirm that.

  7. Re:Correction by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ISO 8601.

    Standardization and unambiguity are different beasts.

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
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  8. Re:Correction by MightyYar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll accept that the US is the last holdout of Imperial units when I can't walk into any pub in London and hear people ordering "pints".

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    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.