NASA Messenger Probe reaches and orbits Planet Mercury!

[rodsky]

---

For the first time in human history, we have a spacecraft orbiting the planet Mercury

NASA probe reaches Mercury - CNN.com

(artist's impression, prior to orbital insertion)



"NASA's Mercury probe Messenger has become the first spacecraft to go into orbit around the closest planet to the Sun.

Confirmation of the probe entering Mercury's orbit was received Thursday evening.

"Achieving Mercury orbit was by far the biggest milestone since Messenger was launched more than six and a half years ago," said Messenger Project Manager Peter Bedini, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

"This accomplishment is the fruit of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of the navigation, guidance-and-control, and mission operations teams, who shepherded the spacecraft through its 4.9-billion-mile (7.9-billion-kilometer) journey."

The space agency is hoping to get the first pictures back from the Messenger probe in orbit by the end of the month. The primary science phase of the mission is scheduled to begin April 4.

"Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored," said Sean Solomon, Messenger principal investigator.

"For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system's innermost planet," he said. "Mercury's secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed."

-RODION

[rodsky]

First image after orbit established!

(click on this image to see the full photo)


Although not the first image of the planet mercury, you can see how much more detail we now have because Messenger is actually orbiting the first planet, and not just "passing by" it.

From the NASA Messenger site:

"The dominant rayed crater in the upper portion of the image is Debussy. The smaller crater Matabei with its unusual dark rays is visible to the west of Debussy. The bottom portion of this image is near Mercury's south pole and includes a region of Mercury's surface not previously seen by spacecraft. Compare this image to the planned image footprint ( http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/...mage_black.png )to see the region of newly imaged terrain, south of Debussy."

Mercury really looks a lot like our moon which is not surprising...Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, is even larger than Mercury! So it's not surprising that a small planet like Mercury would have "moonlike" features.

-RODION

[neshem]

mura gyud btaw atong moon. nice.

rodsky unsa reason why nang isa ka crater dark ang rays?

[KizoneC]

wow! it looks like our moon jud... how far is mercury from out planet man diay master rodsky?

[rodsky]

mura gyud btaw atong moon. nice.

rodsky unsa reason why nang isa ka crater dark ang rays?

I have no idea. Dark=nasunog? LOL

-RODION

[neshem]

hehe curious lang ko, kay uban sa iyang crater lighter man ang rays.

mura man pod naka bulge..basin mountain noh, ang rays kay shadow?

[unregistered]

mura gyud btaw atong moon. nice.

rodsky unsa reason why nang isa ka crater dark ang rays?

Looks like a deep channel then naay shadow

[gabs]

basin diha nagpuyo mga High temp species hehe!

[jeshcel]

nindota gud ani nga image.... nothing different than our moon.

[Godfall]

read this in yahoo. but better magbasa diri kay madiscuss.