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Messenger Sends First Full Fly-By Image of Mercury

Posted by timothy on from the most-strained-backformation-name-ever dept.

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.

5 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Did they by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tom Tucker: Yes they did, and we go to Ollie Williams with the Black-U-Weather Mercury Forecast. Ollie?

    Ollie Williams: It's hot!

    Tom Tucker: Thank you, Ollie.

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  2. Gizmodo?? WTF by Sir_Dill · · Score: 5, Informative
    So what...we can't link to the projects website? we have to go off a gizmodo article?

    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

  3. Freshness... by denzacar · · Score: 4, Informative

    From Wikipedia:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_(crater_on_Mercury)

    Kuiper is a moderate-size crater with a central peak cluster located at 11 S, 31.5 W on Mercury.
    It is 60 km in diameter and was named after Gerard Kuiper.
    Kuiper crater has the highest recorded albedo of any region on the planet's surface, suggesting that it is one of the youngest craters.

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  4. Re:RAEG by UncleTogie · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like the fact that the International Astronomical Union mickey-moused a minnie-planet is driving this user goofy.

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  5. Re:Colour images please by Amigori · · Score: 4, Informative

    Easy now. If you look at the details of the images, all of the pictures that have been release have been taken with the Narrow Angle Camera MDIS camera. Details here. The NAC takes black & white photos. In order to get color photos, the pictures need to be taken with the Wide Angle Camera.

    IANARS, but I would think they are waiting until they are in orbit before they deploy the WAC, probably due to power requirements. I could be wrong though.

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