MESSENGER to go to Mercury

(arg!)Styopa writes: "NASA agrees that Mercury's worth a mission."

Re:Mercurian ice?

[boarder]

Actually, I would think it has to do with the fact that there is no atmosphere (not enough gravity) to trap any heat so, therefore, in the shadows it would be like the cold depths of space or the craters of our moon.

Cool, but what about Pluto ?

[windi]

Cool But what about Pluto Express. We know almost nothing about Pluto (expect that Pluto exists and has a moon), and if we don't launch a probe to Pluto in the next decade or so, it's going to be much harder and way more expensice to reach it.
So, NASA, are you listening ?

Re:Yahoo! or Microsoft.

[Registered Coward v2]

I'm betting on AIM - wouldn't want Messenger to miss.

Re:Mercurian ice?

[Joe Rumsey]

Larry Niven's first published story was actually called "The Coldest Place," and it was about the point on Mercury facing directly away from the sun. At the time, they thought Mercury was tidally locked, but they discovered that it actually rotates slowly after the story was accepted but before it appeared.

It was published anyway (I believe Niven actually asked them not to), but the thing to take away is that even though Mercury is close to the sun, it also has no atmosphere and so any parts facing away from the sun will get extremely cold. Anything in space experiences this sort of effect. If something's completely in shadow, there's nothing else that's going to put radiation into it. If the parts of those craters with ice are never hit by sunlight, it's possible there could be ice.

I'm sorry I don't really remember more of the story itself, I just remember that story about the story.

Mercurian ice?

[Vuarnet]

How can the planet closest to the sun, with daytime temperatures soaring past 850 degrees Fahrenheit at its equator, have what appears to be ice in its polar craters?
Maybe it radiates heat back into space more efficiently than previously thought.


Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

Re:Cool, but what about Pluto ?

[Spamalamadingdong]

The expense of getting to Pluto isn't going to change a whole lot; there is a Jupiter gravity assist opportunity about ever Jovian year.

More importantly, if we don't send a mission to Pluto very soon we won't be able to observe its atmosphere easily for another century or so (it will all be frozen out and inaccessible to instruments without a rendezvous and landing).
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