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Messenger Probe Sends Back Mercury Photos

Posted by Zonk on Sun Jan 20, 2008 06:39 PM
from the been-a-while-since-we-were-there dept.
NASA Space Science
arbitraryaardvark writes "NASA's Messenger probe flew past Mercury at a distance of 125 miles. The spacecraft took hundreds of pictures during the pass, updating photos from the now 30-year-old Mariner mission. According to an article at the International Business Times, the probe will eventually settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011. 'The images obtained by the $446 million MESSENGER mission (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) this week contain some of those unexplored areas. One image released Saturday was taken after Messenger made its closest approach to Mercury last week. In the photos released this week, scientists have observed unexplored cratered areas of the planet. On Monday, Messenger made its closest approach to Mercury yet, aiming for new discoveries. Among its goals is to discover if Mercury has ice water in its polar craters and to complete the mapping of the whole planet.' Meanwhile here on Earth, a joint EU/Japan probe with an ion drive is set to head towards Mercury sometime in 2013."
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story

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[+] NASA Spacecraft Set to Shine Spotlight on Mercury 71 comments
coondoggie writes to tell us Network World is reporting that NASA will this month see the realization of a mission launched in 2004, sent to explore the planet Mercury. "MESSENGER, launched in 2004, is the first NASA mission sent to orbit Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. But on Jan. 14 it will pass close by the planet and use Mercury's gravity for a critical assist needed to keep the spacecraft on track for its ultimate orbit around the planet three years from now. Still, the spacecraft is also expected to throw back some never-before -seen images, NASA said. The flyby also will gather essential data for planning the overall mission. After flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury, it will start a year-long orbital study of Mercury in March 2011, NASA said. "
[+] Messenger Flies by Mercury 170 comments
Riding with Robots writes "Today, more than three decades after the last spacecraft visited Mercury, Messenger buzzed just 200 kilometers above the planet's surface. During the encounter, the robotic spacecraft conducted a range of scientific observations, including imaging swaths of Mercury's surface that have never been seen up close before. A few of the first pictures are now available, with many more to come in the next few days."
by
Submission: Mercury probe photos dark side by arbitraryaardvark (845916)
[+] Messenger Discovers "Spider" Crater on Mercury 74 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property brings us a Washington Post story which discusses how scientists are finding surprises among the pictures sent back from Mercury by the Messenger spacecraft. In particular, images depicting a crater with over 100 troughs radiating out from it are stumping researchers. The crater is referred to as 'The Spider', and it occupies a basin that has turned out to be larger than once thought. NASA also has a discussion of the crater. The Messenger craft began taking the up-close photos earlier this month. From the Post: "Scientists were also surprised by evidence of ancient volcanoes on many parts of the planet's surface and how different it looks compared with the moon, which is about the same size. Unlike the moon, Mercury has huge cliffs, as well as formations snaking hundreds of miles that indicate patterns of fault activity from Mercury's earliest days, more than 4 billion years ago."
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  • Now that's engineering (Score:5, Funny)

    by PCM2 (4486) on Sunday January 20 2008, @06:43PM (#22121042) Homepage
    Leave it to the engineers at NASA: It's not enough that the probe is going to send messages back from an alien world. It's not enough that the world in question is Mercury, who was the messenger of the Roman gods. No. They have to make it an acronym.

    • Engineers or marketeers? (Score:5, Funny)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Sunday January 20 2008, @07:15PM (#22121326)
      Real engineers wouldn't care if it was called project 11-A-004. Likely the name came for manager/spin-people spending hours and hours in meetings and focus groups, costing tax payers about $5.7 million.

      • Re:Engineers or marketeers? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Speare (84249) on Sunday January 20 2008, @07:43PM (#22121544) Homepage
        And yet, would it be funded by Congress if it didn't get an easy-to-remember name? Would the USAPATRIOT act have been voted up to the White House if it was simply voted on as HR3162 or "Ashcroft's Wet Dream Panopticon Act of 2001"? Sometimes it takes a bit of focus testing and a shiny veneer of shinola to get approval from those who have the power but not the understanding.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Joe Tie. (567096)
        Engineers seem to be at the top of groups 'most' often afflicted with bad pun syndrome, so I wouldn't put it past them.
    • Where's the damn color? I don't understand why after all these decades, it's so hard for them to take color photos. Just slap a damn Sony camcorder on there if you have to, and take some regular color pictures, to show what our own eyes would perceive if we were there.
      • Eh - color, shmolor. Rocks are rocks.

        HOWEVER, I think it would REALLY kick ass if they could correlate the old photos with the new ones and look for signs of changes on the surface!

      • Re:COLOR PHOTOS PLEASE? (patience) (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Tablizer (95088) on Sunday January 20 2008, @09:17PM (#22122238) Homepage Journal
        Where's the damn color? I don't understand why after all these decades, it's so hard for them to take color photos.

        They probably didn't have time to take many images of the same spots through multiple filters. However, when the probe eventually settles into orbit in the coming years, they will be able to start such an endeavor.

        Different filters are primarily to study chemical composition, but can also be used to make nifty color images (like this moon one) [atalaia.org].

        In short, be patient. This mission has only just begun...
           

        • Re:COLOR PHOTOS PLEASE? (patience) (Score:4, Interesting)

          by solitas (916005) on Sunday January 20 2008, @10:29PM (#22122694)
          A similar hyper-color image of the Moon (that makes a nice desktop/background): http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060907.html [nasa.gov]

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Tablizer (95088)
            I should note that the link I gave did not use color filters, but rather regular color photography, and stacked up several dozens in order to tease the color out. One advantage of filters is that you can capture more colors and wavelength range than the human eye can see. (Theoretically color film like that could be made, but it would be useless for consumer use, unless you are a bird or a fish.)
                   

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ianare (1132971)
        From what this page [nasa.gov] says, these will be turned to color images later. They take the same picture at 10 different wavelengths then combine them to make a color image.

    • Re:Now that's engineering (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CougMerrik (1221450) on Sunday January 20 2008, @10:43PM (#22122826)

      "(MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging)"


      That is one of the most ridiculous abuses of acronym creation I have ever seen.
  • submitted story was just:
    NASA's Messenger probe flew by Mercury 125 miles away and took pictures, updating 30 year old pioneer 10 photos. Messenger will orbit Mercury in 2011. The ion drive European/Japanese ship doesn't launch till 2013. Wired Bad Astronomer. (y'know, with some some links in there.)

  • Doesn't look like a phone to me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vthornheart (745224) on Sunday January 20 2008, @06:59PM (#22121200)
    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/phone_crater.html [nasa.gov]

    NASA says that crater looks like it has a phone shape in it. The first thing I thought was "Damnit, someone put a copyright on Mercury."
    • I agree, it's a -lot- closer to a copyright symbol than a phone. They seem to be so determined to make it look like something that they miss the obvious.
      • This IP sh!t has got to stop.

        It must be the same people who make custom planets like Magrathea. It appears to be one of the rejects as there was a fault in the planetary raw material processing unit when the mantle was being poured. You know, "Segmentation fault - CORE DUMPED". It would be a pisser to see the photoshots on the next flyby reveal the "Made in Taiwan" imprint.

        Downmodding proves veracity beyond question. Not responsible for soy latte spat on keyboard or excretory incontinence.

    • The first thing I thought was "Damnit, someone put a copyright on Mercury."
      this is most definitely proof of intelligent design. LOOK! God even put a copyright on it!
    • That phone is obviously evidence of intelligent life. It was surely used by the same aliens who did the face on mars.... It is probably how the two planets communicated with each other....
  • First time I heard about sending a probe to mercury.. I would have thought that would be the least interesting of the planets round these parts. With operations as expensive as these, wouldn't they want to focus their resources on Mars or something?

    • Re:Spreading resources a little thin? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sockatume (732728) on Sunday January 20 2008, @07:21PM (#22121384) Homepage
      I imagine that many people thought the same about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, until Voyager started sending back pictures of Europa and Io. You never know where the next big insight is going to come from, and Mercury's had little enough attention for it to be worth a look. Mars is pretty substantially covered. That said, in the current funding climate (NASA's had to cancel projects left, right, and centre due to cuts to its thin post-Iraq budget), nobody would approve a mission to a rock like Mercury.
    • Considering the problems of the seafloor, at this point we have better maps of Mars than Earth. A lot of effort has been spent on Mars. Meanwhile, Mercury, Venus and Pluto are all more or less unexplored. For Venus, even sending probes don't help us too far, go inside the atmosphere and the equipment is destroyed, stay outside and you don't see all that much. Pluto and Mercury, well, it's just a matter of getting around to actually go there. I think it's wise to do so now. I find the simple prospect of poss

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ceoyoyo (59147)
      Someone added it up and Mars currently has something like thirteen craft either on, orbiting or enroute to it.

      Mercury got three flybys a couple decades a ago, and a hefty chunk of it has never even been seen. What makes Mars so much more interesting than Mercury, besides the fact that it's closer and we might be able to put some astronauts on it?
      • Those reasons you gave alone make it more interesting, IMO. But aside from those, I think mercury is the least interesting, from what I can recall about it.. but I guess it might be the easiest to reach rather than something like jupiter's/saturn's satellites.
        • Maybe most interesting, but so much more interesting that we should send dozens of probes to it and completely neglect other targets? If so then maybe we shouldn't send anything to Saturn or the asteroids either.

          There are interesting things about Mercury. To start with, it has a magnetic field and nobody has really figured out why that should be.

  • So close... (Score:5, Informative)

    by PhotoGuy (189467) on Sunday January 20 2008, @08:45PM (#22121992) Homepage
    200km, wow! As a point of reference, geosyncrhonous satellites on earth are 36,371 km high, and the best resolution earth imagery satellites are at around 500km.
    • Well, that's because we have an atmosphere which would slow them down. Plus, if we want really good images we can send planes so there's not much need.

  • Copyrighted image (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dan East (318230) on Sunday January 20 2008, @10:07PM (#22122556) Homepage
    I'm afraid the SETI people will be quite disappointed when the first extraterrestrial communication they receive is from a copyright lawyer.

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/phone_crater.html [nasa.gov]

    Dan East

  • NASA releases photos in days; ESA over a year (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peter303 (12292) on Monday January 21 2008, @11:00AM (#22127042)
    The great thing about NASA is they now release raw photos on the web within days. The ESA only releases occasional publicity photos from its Mars and Venus orbitors. They have a one-year embargo so the scientists can publish results first. That was NASA's policy too a long time ago. ESA might be doing interesting stuff, but nobody's going to hear about it.

    Raw photos arent the best for scientific study. They have to have shape and lighting/color distortion corrected, and composited into larger photos or animations. NASA releases corrected photos a few months later.

    • Fake photos (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Sunday January 20 2008, @07:19PM (#22121358)
      The fakes were made by the same people who faked the moon landings, so what do you expect?

      But really, I'm disappointed. How many millions of dollars and how much waiting just to see more photos of a vaguely spherical object with lots of cratering. This is not the 90s folks. They really need to make flashier pictures if they want to get the public interest.

      • But really, I'm disappointed. How many millions of dollars and how much waiting just to see more photos of a vaguely spherical object with lots of cratering. This is not the 90s folks. They really need to make flashier pictures if they want to get the public interest.

        This is an interesting point. The Messenger probe was sent to do science, not to get flashy pictures for NASAs' PR department. Yet, most people wouldn't give a damn without their new desktop wallpapers, and public interest is necesary to get fu
      • Yeah, they'd better Photoshop some lens flares here ASAP! :-p

        Not all science looks "exciting", but can still learn scientists a lot. In this case, they're trying to see how the Mercuy geology formed. If you want flashier pictures, they've sent people to the Moon, rovers to Mars, and even a probe to Titan. That last one was more like disappointment to me. I thought it was unfortunate it couldn't carry a higher resolution camera, because the environment looked amazing with rivers and lakes of methane and all

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dan Schulz (1144089)

      Why does it look like the moon?

      Because like with every other terrestrial world in the inner solar system, it's been bombarded by meteors, asteroids and the like for over four billion years. Combine that with the lack of any real atmosphere (yes, I know about the thin hydrogen atmosphere, but let's be serious for a moment, shall we?), you're not going to have enough meteorological energy (weather) to start eroding those craters. Same with geological activity (there likely isn't any). Besides, given the large apparent size of the plane

      • I'm not an engineer, but I think they went with B/W images to actually get better results with the camera.

        The surface is nearly colorless (gray), like the moon. So images in all wavelengths they look about the same. Particulate surfaces that are highly gardened by meterite strikes tend to be like that. Perhaps thermal IR or X ray florescence would show more variation.

      • Re:Mercury = moon? (Score:5, Informative)

        by 4D6963 (933028) on Monday January 21 2008, @07:18AM (#22125240)

        I think they went with B/W images to actually get better results with the camera.

        No. The NASA doesn't use cameras with Bayer grids (pixel-sized red, green and blue filters) as we have in normal cameras because they care about much more than just visible colours so they have an unfiltered camera and they rotate before its lens a bunch of filters that includes red, green and blue filters but also infra-red and ultraviolet as well as polarized filters. The pictures we see are in B&W because as of now they didn't yet put together pictures taken with different filters in order to produce true or "false" colour images.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ruie (30480)

      Why does it look like the moon?

      - very thin atmosphere

      why is it in black & white?

      - these cameras typically have no filters or can only shoot one filter at a time. This gives better sensitivity and resolution at the expense of being able to make simultaneous multi-spectrum shots.

      Also take a look at this image [nasa.gov] - the scattering of pixels in the top left part if the picture is not dust on your monitor but actual stars as seen by the spacecraft ! I wonder if it is possible to find out from this when the sh

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by carbon116 (792624)
        I don' think those dots are stars. They probably wouldn't show up on a photos like this, especially seeing as Mercury is probably *very* bright because it's so much closer to the sun than us. I suspect there is actually a bit of processing going on the dim the photos to make sure they're not washed out.

        I think it's either just noise from the camera, or possibly the effect of cosmic rays hitting the camera CCD. This is something that effects anything leaving Earth's protective atmosphere, and causes

    • why is it in black & white?
      NASA's going for that 'vintage' look that's all the rage now. Black and white just has a certain classiness that color can't rival.
      • Yeah, there were loads of really stable digital colour cameras of a suitable size to fit on the probe back in 1973. IIRC the cameras do have colour filters though, so photos could be combined to give a colour image if needed.

    • Re:Miles? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2008, @07:25PM (#22121414)

      125 Miles?? Have they not learnt their lesson over at Mars?

      Its the 21st century damnit, and these guys are still in the 19th.
      They report it in miles. NASA has already converted over to metric. In fact they were converted over in the 90s (though obviously not all subcontractors were). The only reason you are hearing this in miles is because the public affairs officials think you are too stupid to understand kilometers.

      • too stupid? yes and no (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "the public affairs officials think you are too stupid to understand kilometers"

        Unless you are...
        - raised on the metric system
        - currently in school and dealing with metrics
        - are or were in the army (klicks ftw)
        - are in a scientific field primarily using the metric system

        chances are that yes, you are indeed too stupid to understand kilometers.

        Now don't get me wrong - not saying you're too stupid to calculate how many miles a given kilometers figure would be... but just because you can do the math doesn't mea

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Trogre (513942)
        Well to be fair, most of their audience will be American.

    • Yeah, if only the US would adopt a sensible policy, like confiscating non-metric measuring equipment and levying huge fines on people who still sell fruit in obsolete "pounds", we'd be able to catch up to the high standards set by other, more enlightened countries.

    • It's the 21st century damnit, and people don't use the word "learnt" anymore.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by corsec67 (627446)
        Well, even NASA has [wikipedia.org] problems [wikipedia.org] with missions [wikipedia.org] around this planet, during manned missions that should be held to a much higher standard.

        (Not to mention problems with a mission [wikipedia.org] that was just doing training on the ground)

        But, the Mars Rovers [wikipedia.org], Apollo 11 [wikipedia.org], and this mission are examples where NASA gets stuff very right.

        (I hope I am not just putting gasoline and a lit fusee on the fire [flickr.com], like my dad is doing to that car there)
      • Mars3, Russia 1971

          • I wasn't saying there was any catching up to do. The post I replied to asked for another agency that landed something on mars. Mars 3 apparently landed intact and died of other causes shortly after.

          • Let's be serious here , I could have done better then Russia did by strapping some rockets and a transmitter to a camcorder and launching it from my back yard.

            Nasa is very far ahead of Russia or the Soviet Union , or what ever they want to be called this month.

            Insert russian joke here:

            In Soviet Russia the probes probe you !

        • To be even more frank, the ESA has since made it to Titan

          Well, they did have a little help hitching a ride on the NASA/JPL Cassini spacecraft and the Lockmart Titan IV Centaur. With all that they screwed up development of Huygen's radio transmitter ignoring the doppler effect between Cassini and the probe. This was fixed by NASA by redesigning the Huygen's landing. ESA still screwed up the entry losing half of the returned data. If you aren't impressed by the US program one wonders whose you are impressed

    • Why was the earth video so smooth, taken from the same probe?

      Because the probe was only doing a video of Earth then, and not actual science.

      Why were the earth images in color?

      Because someone had already spent the time and combined multiple monochrome images (taken with different filters) into nice-looking color images.

      Why must all other planets out there be black and white?

      Because that's how you get the best scientific data (resolution, color resolution, etc)- use a monochrome camera and apply filters f

    • The pictures are in black in white because they didn't bother yet to put together pictures from different colour filters together, which is a matter of time before that happens (which makes me wish they would just release the raw images as soon as they get it just as they do with Cassini). As for the smoothness of the approach video, we can assume that they didn't try to make a cool video as they did with the Earth but that they were just trying to get a few shots on the first side of Mercury, and keep most

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