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Messenger Sends First Full Fly-By Image of Mercury
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Gizmodo: "NASA's Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft) has flown by just 125 miles over the surface of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest in the Solar System. This is the first time in history that the whole planet is going to be photographed in its entirety by an Earthling probe, with amazing resolution and ultra-crisp detail." The picture at the top of the linked story is fantastic, too.
Did they bring a thermometer?
C|N>K
"by an Earthling probe". Interesting phrase to put in there. Unless I misundertand it, it is assuming that some other intelligent life has already probed (as it were) Mercury? I don't really see a point to put that in there, except to be a bit more sensationalist.
Looks like a black-and-white picture of Coruscant.
Here's a link to the homepage for the messenger mission. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/
And here's a link for the flyby 2 page http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby2.html
>>the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest in the Solar System.
Anyone else rage?
Something I noticed immediately in the picture, was that the craters are a lot more reflective than what I typically see on, for instance, the moon. Certainly a lot more reflective than the rest of Mercury's surface.
Anyone have any idea why?
If you look at some of the images the creators have rough edges while others look really smooth. Almost like the planet was softer during some impacts and harder for others. Either way for the smallest planet, it sure has a lot of impacts on it. Makes me think how violent the solar system was in the past.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_(crater_on_Mercury)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Gizmodo seems to be handling the load a lot better than jhuapl.edu
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
We, (humans), are bloody amazing. We can shoot something into space, with cameras, and transmitting equipment, so accurately that it skims over the surface of a planet millions of miles away in a few years time. I thought the same when I watched the Mars Lander land. And something like MRI scanners? It's just mindbogglingly amazing technology. We're simultaneously so amazing, and yet so obtuse.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Yes, the probe can take color images. The colors on Mercury are quite muted, though. Here's an example.
Saddle up: Riding with Robots
Actually, I think the conversation would go more like this:
"hissssssssssssss"
(That's the sound of your once molten hair evaporating)
And when the hell are we going to get coloured images of Mercury? I mean true RGB colours, not remapped colours. I know that Mercury's colours are probably not the most exciting thing ever, but damnit we have yet to see a single damn colour picture of that bloody planet and the Messenger guys are literally sitting on it.
That's my beef with this mission, all they're giving us is the few snapshots they can be bothered to give us, and that's it. And the best they can be bothered to do at updating the maps is this. It makes me mad. If they would just release their raw images like they did Cassini AND Huygens you're have fully updated real colour maps of Mercury all over the place.
You just got troll'd!
Well of course the colours are muted, the picture you just showed is in black and white!
You just got troll'd!
And here is a link to a much better story on the "Messenger website"
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=111
and a followup article
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=112
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
WTF... I must have gotten confused in my tabs the first time I checked the link because this is not the page I remember commenting about lol.
You just got troll'd!
My first impression was, "it looks a lot like the moon."
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
This has not been funny for a REALLY LONG TIME.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I assume that the planet is so cratered because of no/minimal atmosphere?
I can't tell, exactly, from the photograph, but are there any mountain ranges on Mercury? The image makes it look, except for the craters, pretty uniform in the surface elevation?
Can anyone give us a sense of scale for those craters? I'm guessing that, to be as well defined as they appear from space, they must be something like 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile deep?
"Earthling probe?" Are we officially Earthlings now?
I think I'd prefer Earthican probe, or maybe even Terran probe.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]