Spacecraft Sends First Image From Mercury's Orbit

adeelarshad82 writes "NASA released an image of Mercury captured by its Messenger spacecraft — the first ever obtained from the planet's orbit. The first image came in at 5:20am Eastern yesterday, and over the next six hours, Messenger captured an additional 363 images, which are still being transmitted to the Messenger team on Earth. In the next three days, the spacecraft will capture another 1,185 images, with the goal of snapping 75,000 over the next year."

Re:

[wjlafrance]

Thanks, I'm reading slashdot in class like a good student and just got tubgirl'd.

Re:

[rhook]

At least it wasn't lemon party.

Re:

[strack]

the vagina is pixelated. how modest of them.

Re:

[h4rr4r]

GOATSE of course.
I did not even bother to look, but this same idiot has been doing this for weeks now. Fuck off asshole.

Re:

[h4rr4r]

That one is also a classic kiddo. Just discover trolling did we?
Go out, find new and more disgusting images young one. These old ones only make us feel nostalgic instead of revolted.

Re:

[Quiet_Desperation]

Go out, find new and more disgusting images

Here [timeinc.net] you go.

Re:

[rhook]

You need to grow up kid.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Readers beware: it's actually a map of Uranus.

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[mangu]

Readers beware: it's actually a map of Uranus.

no, unless "U" are an Asian girl suffering from an extreme case of digestive malfunction [wikipedia.org]

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[Silpher]

Thank god you thought of the kids.. thank you sir for at least having the decency to make her genitals unrecognisable

Re:

[h4rr4r]

So change the user agent of your browser. Same thing firefox users did for ages. Not sure if iPhone default browser supports that, but one of them must.

What I did on my android device.

Re:

[Barryke]

So change the user agent of your browser. Same thing firefox users did for ages. Not sure if iPhone default browser supports that, but one of them must.

What I did on my android device.

Thanks i didnt know it had the option.

Mobile sites suck (unless consisting mainly of a menu or dropdownboxes.

Re:

[h4rr4r]

I was not sure it did, but it must be available somehow. Seems like a pretty basic feature to me.

The age of multimedia

[mangu]

Reading this on an iPhone gives you an article about a photo, without the photo.

Look, kid, a phone is for talking, OK? What do you want to see pictures on a phone for?

Re:

[Snaller]

Don't worry, it looks like the moon!

When I was growing up....

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

They called that the Moon. All kidding aside, it looks like a shot of good 'ol Luna to these untrained eyes.

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[obscuro]

Space is such a beautiful desolate hell. Enough gravity to be round, not enough to hold a big, asteroid-burning atmosphere.

Umm yeah...

[sdguero]

Here are the actual photos: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/ [jhuapl.edu]

Re:

[Reapman]

Mod parent up!

Mmm... burnt karma...

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[ElectricTurtle]

For somebody who pretends to be proud of their behavior, you sure are anonymous when you talk about it.

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[Locke2005]

Is it just me, or does the "First Color Image of Mercury" look pretty monochromatic?

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[cratermoon]

You were expecting perhaps green grass, still blue waters, amber waves of grain, and red poppies?

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[Unkyjar]

I was expecting a small French boy, with blonde hair, green outfit and a red bow-tie. Perhaps holding a butterfly net in his hand.

Re:

[Locke2005]

Here [unlike.net] you go.

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[KingofSpades]

He's not on Mercury: you can find him on asteroid B612 [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[ackthpt]

Am I the only one disappointed they didn't find an O'Neill cylinder 54Km in length?

Re:

[swanzilla]

Yes.

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[blair1q]

No. They would have seen that with Hubble years ago.

Actually

[mister_playboy]

Hubble has never taken pictures of Mercury because the risk of pointing the telescope that near to the Sun is too great.

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[blair1q]

Hubble could get the picture when the Earth is between Hubble and the sun.

Unless Mercury itself is just too bright.

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[Urkki]

...and this is why you should never RTFA before reading the comments. Thank you.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

No atmosphere, and less craters than the Moon. Lame.

The "color" images look gray

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

Lame indeed. I just took a look at Messenger's supposed First Color Image of Mercury from Orbit [jhuapl.edu]. I thought I'd gone color blind. It looked so gray. Trying to reproduce the subtle shades in a color printer would be a terrible waste of ink or toner, as you'd be forced to go Cyan-Magenta-Yellow (CMY) to print out something not quite Black (K) or gray.

The mission may yet turn up some astounding scientific discovery, but Mercury isn't a very photogenic planet, as far as celestial bodies go.

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[icannotthinkofaname]

MOUNT JANIS JOPLIN!

Ew. No. I refuse. Would never hit that, ever. Especially not nowadays, with her being dead and all.

Re:

[similar_name]

$mount janis joplin
only root can do that

Why not post the actual NASA link?

[RockClimbingFool]

Seriously.

Here [jhuapl.edu] is the link to the NASA press release.

And here [jhuapl.edu] is the link to the image.

This comment approved by 4 out of 5 squirrels

[Pnarp]

There are six key questions NASA hopes to answer during Messenger's year-long orbit of Mercury: why is Mercury so dense;

Aliens.

what is the planet's geological history;

Aliens.

what is the nature of Mercury's magnetic field;

Alien warp engines.

what is the structure of Mercury's core;

Alien space station.

what are the unusual materials (ice?) at Mercury's poles;

Alien ice.

and what volatiles are important at Mercury?

Aliens farting.

Re:

[Jarik C-Bol]

you're worse than those people that thing Saturn's moon Iapetus is a huge spacecraft built by an ancient human civilization on mars to escape catastrophe and eventually settle on earth parking there spaceship at saturn for god knows what dumb reason.

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[Unkyjar]

I think I'd enjoy that Sci-Fi book.

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[Grog6]

Fuck the book; I want the Ship!

lol

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[Unkyjar]

Ouch. Paper cuts.

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[aquabat]

No seriously, what book is that? I think I'd like to read it too. Sounds similar to A.C. Clarke's Venus Prime, written by Paul Preuss.

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[Jarik C-Bol]

Actually, I ran across the theory doing research on the Nephilim (don't ask). Ran into a website devoted to the theory, with in depth analysis of photos of Lapetus, and pages of 'explanation.' If its a book, I've never read it.

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[Merls the Sneaky]

You lost your keys, it's aliens, a picture falls off the wall, it's aliens, and that time we used a whole bog roll in a day, that was aliens as well.

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[Pnarp]

But what about that time I got my head wedged in a railing...? Was that aliens too...?

hmm

[Trailer Trash]

The first image came in at 5:20am Eastern yesterday

What's the local time on Mercury for that?

Re:

[Required Snark]

Summertime

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[Unkyjar]

I see, it must be summertime, because Mercury is rising. *grin duck flee*

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[Erikderzweite]

Hammertime!

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[Convector]

Using local time on Mercury is only so useful to us. A solar day (e.g., sunrise to sunrise) on Mercury lasts for 176 Earth days.

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[DanielRavenNest]

It's always Sunday on Mercury

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[Unkyjar]

It took Science out for dinner and a movie, maybe some small talk. I don't think the Manned Space Program wants to get too emotionally committed to Science with all the two-timing that Science is doing.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. Manned space flight is mostly a stunt that has its roots in the Cold War dick waving between the superpowers of the era. It is a nostalgic thing now, serving no other purpose than providing A-type personalities the chance to be a passenger on highly automated, routine missions that accomplish nothing of value. Manned space flight is not exploring anything, and it's certainly not science either.

Machines are getting better, we aren't.

Just listen to this podcast. Very instructive. Voyager and the Th [www.cbc.ca]

Re:What have astronauts done lately?

[Unkyjar]

While there may not be a lot of exploration and discovery, it doesn't mean that there isn't any science being done.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/List.html [nasa.gov]

Maybe they need flashier experiments?

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[Unkyjar]

I suppose if your poop explosively grows in volume in micro-gravity, you probably have bigger worries than trying to arbitrarily decide what is and isn't science.

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[Jarik C-Bol]

actually, yes. That sort of information is important if we ever are going to send people interesting places. Sure, its far fetched, but pretend we figure out how to teraform a planet within the solar system. knowing how fast feces expands in volume in free fall becomes important if your moving several thousand people across interplanetary distances for colonization. It may seem pointless to YOU, but some of us hold hope that mankind's exploration of space did not stop at the moon.

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[Jarik C-Bol]

you said it yourself "unless some new physics happens" well there you go, i can hope that we don't know all there is to know about the universe, and that someone finds some new quirk of reality, which leads to some new technology that allows us to explore beyond our planet. hope. Is HOPE so offensive? I'm not saying it WILL happen, i'm saying I HOPE it does. As for the science they do in space, sure, a lot of things humanity has learned may have seemed useless at the time (heck, learning that the earth is r

Re:

[Pennidren]

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why did people ever bother to sail across the barren wasteland that is the ocean?
Living without dreams is not something I am interested in. It has nothing to do with hope; it is about discovery and magic.

To address your comments regarding lack of "real" technological advances over the last decades, you glazed over perhaps the most promising area of future progress: biotech. IT (which you admitted is improving quite readily) will make cracking the DNA code far more fe

Re:

[ZerothAngel]

And hey, maybe we'll get to the point where we won't even have to physically leave the Earth's gravity well in order for us to explore space. Send the machines out first. Even if propulsion tech never advances beyond what we have today, who cares how long they take to reach their destinations?

But once they arrive, they point their receivers back to Earth.

Because, after all, what travels as fast as light? Well for one, there's light itself...

Send minds, not bodies.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a Space Nutter crossed with

Re:

[Pennidren]

On the off chance that I did not just succumb to a troll, why are you so set against pursuing possibilities?
I never said it would happen. I said I am not interested in living with your mindset that it won't.

Lead those that seek complete understanding of the universe, follow those that have the strength to carry on, or get out of the way and live in your reality. We aren't worried about those that already know everything. I do not know if space does or does not hold a place for us, just as I am not go

Re:

[Jarik C-Bol]

to address all your 'points', I essentially have to post a paper demonstrating that I've found some new law of physics, which obviously, I cant. I'm just saying that some people still have that bizarre wanderlust to see what is over the next ridge, or past that next sea. Sure, its essentially useless to humanity at this stage, as the globe has basicly been explored for all practical purposes. Fine, its not "offensive" and yes there is plenty to "Hope" for right here on earth, Fine, thats all well and dandy,

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[Teun]

Never going to happen. Nice to have dreams, but you know it's not possible, right?
You can't program your way to Low Earth Orbit. You can't Kevlar your way to the Moon.
That's the difference between the early 20th century and now.

You troll.

The only thing changed since the advent of space travel is that we are no longer willing to take a great risk.

Re:

[Teun]

With the existing technology we can go new places, especially our communications and navigation have over the past forty years taken great strides.

The type of rocket is very secondary, we know these are going to be long trips.

And yes, this would be a great step for mankind.

Re:

[Waffle Iron]

knowing how fast feces expands in volume in free fall becomes important if your moving several thousand people across interplanetary distances for colonization

As far as "putting the cart before the horse" goes, this one takes the cake.

PCMag? WTF?

[sirrunsalot]

Why in the name of all things holy does this link to pcmag? For godsake just go to nasa.gov [slashdot.org]. It doesn't make too much of a difference on this topic, but it's getting really bad. Just look at the Fukushima stories. I know it sounds silly to complain so much, but people seriously need to learn the difference—and more importantly how to find—primary sources. Intentional or not, there's a huge amount of misinformation out there and there's just no reason every article on /. needs to be routed t