William Atkins
Wednesday, 08 October 2008 20:18
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
Never before seen photographs of Mercury are now available from NASA, after its spacecraft MESSENGER imaged parts of Mercury, such as Kuiper Crater and Machaut Crater. These images are providing quite a few of surprises to "Santa-happy" scientists back home on Earth.
After flying past the planet Mercury on Monday, October 6, 2008, within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of its surface, the spacecraft has returned to Earth images of about 30% of the planet.
More importantly, no other spacecraft has ever before imaged this area. Scientists only saw the terrain through fuzzy images produced by earthbound telescopes.
Starting on Tuesday, October 7, scientists have been converting the data returned by the spacecraft into images that are now available to see on a NASA website.
They are currently analyzing these images to learn more about the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury.
According to the New Scientist article [subscription required] “
Messenger finds web of debris on Mercury,” Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory scientist
Ralph McNutt, who is the project scientist for the mission, exclaimed,
“It's a little bit like Christmas-time, and we're still in the process of opening a lot of the presents.”
The NASA website that offers many of these Christmas presents early in October is found at “
Messenger Images of Mercury.” The website also offers videos involving a wide range of preparations for the mission, along with interviews with key member of the mission team.
What does the images show? Please read on. Plus, NASA scientists have more to offer in the way of Christmas presents as mosaics are being developed of the planet.
