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Messenger Flies by Mercury

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Jan 14, 2008 06:11 PM
from the fun-in-the-sun dept.
Space News
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."
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Related Stories

[+] 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. "
Submission: Spacecraft Flies by Mercury by sighted (851500)
[+] Messenger Probe Sends Back Mercury Photos 137 comments
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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Messenger Flies by Mercury 50 Comments More /

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  • When will this ever end? :-)

    • Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Amorymeltzer (1213818) on Monday January 14 2008, @07:55PM (#22044304)
      Just as in Biology, a lot of what is observed in Astronomy is what's big, pretty, and easy. Venus and Mercury are two planets that are largely unappealing by normal standards - way too hot, completely dead and barren. It's always good to see good science being done for the sake of science, not public opinion. Cassini and the rovers were fantastic, but the less glamorous missions are just as important to our understanding.

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

        by rk (6314) on Monday January 14 2008, @09:45PM (#22045406) Journal

        Part of the problem, too, is that it's really tricky to get to Mercury due to the amount of delta-v you need to shed Earth orbit, plus unlike Mars, Mercury has a negligible atmosphere which makes aerobraking useless. That's why they did three slingshot maneuvers to get there. The navigation team at JPL has really outdone themselves with this flight, and are to be commended.

        It actually takes more delta-v to get to the sun than it takes to leave the solar system from here. This is why that whole "send dangerous waste to the sun" is a really bad idea. It takes a huge amount of fuel and if you miss, you've got a dangerous payload in a highly eccentric orbit that almost certainly crosses the Earth's. What could possibly go wrong? :-)

        And maybe it's because I'm a space nerd, but I think MESSENGER is glamorous as hell.

        • Perhaps you could clarify something for me. After you break earth's orbit, why would it take any extra energy to get to the sun? (This is assuming of course that the garbage is pointed at the sun and timed so it wouldn't get close enough to Venus and Mercury to divert it's course. Why would getting away from the sun be easier than going towards it?

          And a solution to send garbage safely would be to aim it a bit high or low (perpendicular to orbit of Earth). The slingshot would almost never send it back towar

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Tablizer (95088)
            This is assuming of course that the garbage is pointed at the sun and timed so it wouldn't get close enough to Venus and Mercury to divert it's course. Why would getting away from the sun be easier than going towards it?

            If you point it right at the Sun from ground perspective, it will just come back to circle the Earth unless propelled really hard. One needs to find a way to bleed sun-orbiting speed off of it. There's no free lunch.
                     

                  • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                    by Ihlosi (895663)
                    Standard movement vector of solar wind (outward) is neglected (slides along the surface), and we're acting only in perpendicular direction, our orbital speed against "zero" component of the speed vector of the solar wind.

                    Solar sails do not use the solar wind (i.e. charged particles) for propulsion, but the light pressure (photons). Also, you can actually control the direction of the thrust gained from from the solar sail by changing the direction in which the photons are reflected (at the expense of absolu

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

            by rpj1288 (698823) on Tuesday January 15 2008, @04:24AM (#22047986)
            Actually, pointing something towards the sun wouldn't really send your payload into the sun unless you pushed really, really, really hard. To get something to approach the sun using chemical rockets, one must think about the concept of an orbit. An orbit is defined by the object's speed around its central body. Thus, in order to get closer to the sun, your payload would have to drop its orbital velocity to near enough to zero, if you want a fast collision. You would need to use energy to get to the limit of earth's gravitational influence, about 1,000,000km out. At this point, you would essentially moving with the same orbital velocity as the earth with respect to the sun. Escape velocity for Earth is about 11km/s. With respect to the Sun, the Earth has an orbital velocity of about 48km/s. This means that to get you probe to go on a straight line to the sun, you would need 59km/s of delta v, which is a hell of a lot, and delta v is (essentially) directly proportional to amount of fuel you must carry. Now, granted, you could take a more circuitous route to arrive at the sun, and use less delta v, but it would still be a significant fraction of the 59km/s.

            With regards to you second question, unless the highly inclined orbit was altered again at perigee and apogee with respect to the sun, your payload would return to the Earth's orbit.

            Note: I am not a rocket scientist, at least not for a while, but I have done a bit of interplanetary stuff like this. All the numbers come from google. And it is entirely possible I'm quite mistaken, but I hope this was a bit helpful.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by CheshireCatCO (185193)
            The answer is easiest to see in terms of angular momentum. (Orbits are really all about angular momentum, more so than energy.) If you break free of Earth's immediate gravity, you're still in pretty much the same orbit as the Earth going around the Sun. You have to dump a lot of that angular momentum to reach Mercury or the Sun, and that takes quite a bit of work. Remember, escape speed from the Earth's surface is around 11 km/sec, but the Earth's orbital speed is around 30 km/sec. You have to dump abo

        • Re:Again? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Tom Rothamel (16) on Tuesday January 15 2008, @01:19AM (#22047108) Homepage

          That's why they did three slingshot maneuvers to get there. The navigation team at JPL has really outdone themselves with this flight, and are to be commended.


          Interestingly enough, the navigation of this flight was outsourced to Kintex [kinetx.com]. The mission itself is managed by APL... AFAIK, JPL wasn't particularly involved.
  • Just looked at the photos and was hoping for something of higher resolution or of higher details. Is Messenger going to get any closer to the planet?

  • Three Cheers for NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spaceyhackerlady (462530) on Monday January 14 2008, @06:26PM (#22043198)

    Hats off to the folks who put this together. I was in high school the last time we saw any closeup pictures of Mercury. Every time we send probes to other panets we find out really cool stuff. Messenger should be no exception.

    If we can't go there ourselves, we can send robots. Robots are cool. :-)

    ...laura

  • Correction (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kozar_The_Malignant (738483) on Monday January 14 2008, @06:27PM (#22043216)

    >A few of the first pictures are now available, with many more to come in the next few days.

    Actually, only a few approach images are available. The first images from the close approach will not be available until 01/05/08 when Messenger has finished data collection and points its antenna towards Earth and begins to transmit data. Can't wait for images of a very harsh environment.

    • Oops... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kozar_The_Malignant (738483) on Monday January 14 2008, @06:30PM (#22043258)

      The first images from the close approach will not be available until 01/05/08

      That should be 01/15/08. After 15:00 EST.

      • Re:Oops... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Inda (580031) <slash.20.inda@spamgourmet.com> on Monday January 14 2008, @07:11PM (#22043814) Journal

        In Quîndecimber?

        14 months is a long time to wait.

        • In Quîndecimber?

          14 months is a long time to wait.

          How about Quindicembre? But Dicembre really ought to be Dodicembre anyway since it's the twelfth month not the tenth, but if Dicembre is the twelfth, then the fifteenth would be Tredicembre.

          Either way it's not really so long to wait, since this would be the thirteenth month. :-)

            • Re:Oops... (Score:5, Interesting)

              by dryeo (100693) on Monday January 14 2008, @11:10PM (#22046066)
              Actually July and August were just renamed. July was Quintilis before being renamed in honour of Julius and August was Sextilis. The year used to start in March (Spring) so the month numbers were correct at one time.

    • Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the_other_chewey (1119125) on Monday January 14 2008, @07:23PM (#22043950)
      The first images from the close approach will not be available until 01/05/08

      Could we please use unambiguous date formatting?
      Something like YYYY-MM-DD?
      I guess you actually meant 2008-01-15 with a typo.
      • *clearly* he meant 01/15/8000000000008 , which in in the Mecurian calendar means the first month, fifteenth day in the 8-Trillion-and-8th Mecurian solar rotation.

        Plus, the Mercury citizens have learned to simply abbreviate as '08' on their paper calendars-- if you write all the zeros, the paper calendars usually catch fire before you are done-- so it's important to write quickly!

        • Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)

          by the_other_chewey (1119125) on Monday January 14 2008, @09:16PM (#22045068)
          How is 2008-01-05 unambiguous?

          ISO 8601.
          Additionally, I'm completely unaware of anyone or anyplace using
          YYYY-DD-MM as a date format, and my googleing seems to confirm that.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Detritus (11846)
          Month names are not portable, they need to be localized. We have an ISO standard (YYYY-MM-DD) for dates, let's use it.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by MightyYar (622222)
              I'll accept that the US is the last holdout of Imperial units when I can't walk into any pub in London and hear people ordering "pints".

    • will not be available until 01/05/08
      Jan. 5th? May 1st?

      I know the following post was less vague as there aren't 15 months, but for clarity sake can we ask for ISO dates?

      2008-01-05: No mistakes.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by palegray.net (1195047)
        You must have read this highly informative site [ufos-aliens.co.uk] and applied your intensive research efforts directly to the debunking of this obviously fake planetary fly-by. My hat is off to you; job well done buddy...

        Dang it all, even I can't keep from laughing at that page.

      • Re:Photos are FAKE (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rubycodez (864176) on Monday January 14 2008, @08:10PM (#22044438) Homepage
        stare for a tenth of a second at the Sun through 8x binoculars. then you will have some idea why a camera that can image mercury's sunlit surface can't detect stars.

  • great flyby animation (Score:5, Informative)

    by imipak (254310) on Monday January 14 2008, @06:46PM (#22043492) Journal
    There's a really nice animation on the Flyby 1 page [jhuapl.edu]: 10Mb version [jhuapl.edu], 84Mb version [jhuapl.edu].

  • It's a FAKE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves (236787) on Monday January 14 2008, @06:58PM (#22043644)
    That can't be real! There aren't any stars [badastronomy.com] in the background!

    • Not only that, but if you look closely enough, you can see it's just one of the faked moon photos upside down! Definitely a hoax!

  • A good quick read (Score:4, Informative)

    by coffee412 (787700) on Monday January 14 2008, @07:22PM (#22043940)
    Section of Reworked Venera-13 Image http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_DigitalImages.htm [mentallandscape.com] Checkout the venus pics if you havent already from the link above. Mercury surface pics would be cool.
  • We all know about the Face on Mars, but I wonder if they will finally find the Butt on Mercury?

  • Global warming on Mercury (Score:5, Funny)

    by heroine (1220) on Monday January 14 2008, @09:05PM (#22044946) Homepage
    There's a planet with a serious global warming problem.

    • Nonsense. It's part of a perfectly natural cycle the planet goes through and if you stop driving your SUV you might even make the planet COLDER than it should be. There is no global warming problem ;)

  • Extremely Close (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PhotoGuy (189467) on Sunday January 20 2008, @08:10PM (#22121732) Homepage
    200km! Wow, that's incredibly close to Mercury. For comparison's sake, geosynchronous orbit (where all our TV and most communication satellites live) are at 36,371 km from earth, 181 times as far as this probe went to mercury. Even the highest resolution earth imaging satellites we have orbit at around 500km.

    While you can't scoop up the dirt, being that close for visuals has to be nearly as good as landing there...

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