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Subscribe to RSSNASA's Messenger probe entered orbit around Mercury just this month after a journey of six and a half years, but it's already hard at work. Hundreds of images have been sent back in the past couple of days. Take a look at this trio of highlights, and then get the full story behind these marvels from Mercury:
NASA / JHUAPL / CIW
Messenger acquired this image of Mercury's horizon on March 29 as the spacecraft was flying northward along the first orbit during which its dual-camera system was turned on. Bright rays from Hokusai Crater can be seen running north to south in the image.
NASA / JHUAPL / CIW
Mercury isn't the solar system's most colorful planet, but you can make out subtle shades in this first color image from Messenger, acquired on March 29. This is actually part of an eight-image sequence highlighting the bright rayed crater known as Debussy.
NASA / JHUAPL / CIW
Here's a closer look at Debussy Crater, acquired by Messenger's Narrow Angle Camera on March 29. The bright rays, consisting of impact ejecta and secondary craters, spread out from Debussy at the top of the image. The rays extend for hundreds of miles across Mercury's surface.
More about Mercury:
- Scientists tell the story behind the pictures
- First look at Mercury from orbit
- 10 surprising facts about the Mercury probe
- Mercury just might hit us someday
- Interactive: The new solar system
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about my book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto." And if you want to stay on my good side, don't ever call Mercury the "smallest planet."
Leave a Comment:
I hope it will not happen this kind of impact ejecta to our mother earth!!!
I love the pictures. They are really clear.
Look! There's a little dude standing there in the left quadrant on picture 2 - to the left of the big crater.
Go to the first page and read comments on this. your second to notice,
Its amazing how much mercury looks like the moon from up close! When I first saw the image on the front page of MSNBC before I read the caption I thought it was the moon.
What is that tripod looking thing on the second photo
Go to page one and read comments on this, Your 3rd to notice.
Mulder would love that photo
I think we got this photo by error on someones part or maybe not. The new word is (Mulley) a combination of Mulder and Skully.
E to your friends and see what they think, even maybe a science major or college for review.
I tried its just comes back unable to send and I have had this black Navigator with tinted windows parked outside since my first comment
What is that tripod looking object on the second photo pretty cool
Ok, give it to me once again, why are we spending so many billions of dollars to jump off planet earth?
Maahaahahahaha!
the photos are completely generic and vacant...they could be the surface of the moon or the surface of mars or venus or one or more of Jupiter's moons or the old movie set from capricorn one or any of 200 other old movies....they're nothing at all except hubris....they help not at all in any practical way with anything and the same money could have much more profitably been spent on designing better safer nuclear reactors or more efficioent cheaper salt water desalination
William Dobni: I suppose you would rather see billions spent in Libya for absolutely nothing and don't kid yourself that we're saving lives over there. Most the technology you enjoy resulted from the space program.
"the same money could have much more profitably been spent on designing better safer nuclear reactors"
Woulda coulda shoulda.....it's easy being a Monday morning qb but the Japanese probably weren't asking for us to meddle in or fund their designs in the 90's and Messenger is OUR probe not theirs.
" or more efficioent cheaper salt water desalination"
For whom? "profitably spent" based on what exactly? Make "cheaper" how? Why be so specific when you're just picking things out of a hat and missing why this was funded (or that it was rather minor in the bigger picture of NASA operations years ago when started or now)?
whatever you say, space cadets
Ok William, this probe cost $400 million to build and launch, by contrast the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are currently running about a trillion plus. NASA's annual budget is usually a tenth or less than that of the DoD. Now who is wasting more money? Might wanna run the numbers first and see what is being spent where.
Amazing photo's of all these other planets..just proves it will be thousands of years before we discover another earth like planet (hundreds of light years away). We better keep our planet in good shape..or the future is DOOMED!!!!
Wars don't hurt yet but might in future..but energy wise its up for grabs.. NUKES have to really be watched.
Larry can't even spell WASTE of money, and tries to lecture.
All exploration is useful, imo, we always learn something.
The Space Program is largely responsible for modern life, love it or hate it.
Which is more true..A or B
A-Takes humans to make humans or machines to make humans?.
B- Takes humans to kill humans or machines to kill humans?
Please somebody explain to me. How could messenger send pictures from Mercury to Earth from such a distance without medium (the fact that its vacuum of air). How could messenger travel for six and half years without running out of fuel or electricity. And how can we keep track of the messenger to arrive on Mercury not Venus.
They use the gravity pull of planets to approach them..its all in the timing.
Think about walking on the MOON in 1969..Bill Gates was 8 years old!
Answers (in order):
Radio.
Gravity.
They plan this stuff (cause it's a big solar system).
ooops meant Bill Gates was 14 years old
As all know and see you can float in space...why lack of gravity..now if anything gets closer to another gravity pull ( aka- most planets do it)..you will be sucked into that gravity...and if you can control it by other means.. a simple burst of a small jet/rocket you can stay in that obit awhile.
OK DiCaprio some of this is pretty basic science. The orbiter has fuel reserves that it did not have to burn till it entered orbit around Mercury, prior to that the probe was using inertia from the initial launch to travel and gravity assistance to slow down from the Sun(it completed a few orbits in the past 7 years). As for how it can communicate, radio signals do not require a transmission medium to be sent, as they are a form of radiation, rather than vibration like sound(for the record, light is a form of radiation, as is heat. Radiation and radioactivity are not synonymous).
All knowledge has value. Perhaps we will meet the fire people of MErcury sometime in the future. Life may exst here that can live in the heat and lack of real atmosphere...
I just think everything we can learn has a value, we don't know what when or how but it will have value.
Mercurians are all hot heads (but the BBQ's are exquisit... as long as you're not the main course).
Some parts look like my backyard.
To all posters who are complaining about money spent. First, this particular mission is actually small potatoes. Second the U.S. govt. has more money STOLEN by polititions than this cost. Third, if it wasn't for space exploration, you wouldn't have a computer/ internet to complain on. You guys probably didn't like fire when it was first brought to the cave either!!!LOL
Why is it that even the most benign subject is turned into a political or religious discussion? Just enjoy the wonders of the universe!