Mercury Bound Messenger Movie

[yevaud]

Here <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[Leovinus]

That hardly looks real. Like a blue glass marble with clouds painted on it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

They actually said the same thing at the NASA site I'd obtained it from: that it looks like a very good CGI production. It's the real deal though. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

It's so realistic looking, hard to believe it's <i>not</i> cgi... errr.. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>

 

[rogerinnh]

If you use the scoll bar at the bottom of the video you can move through individual frames. In some frames you can see what look like small green objects, e.g. frame 2005-08-03T16:51:51.787621 and frame 2005-08-03T16:51:51.779680.<br />And on frame 2005-08-03T16:51:51.783831 you can see a glare or something on the right edge of the Earth.<br /><br />I don't know how to post images on this forum, so maybe someone else can take a screen capture of those frames and post them here. Looks pretty interesting to me.

 

[yevaud]

Hard to say, really. They did state that this is a composite made of of numerous seperate images taken over a 24-hour period of time. Perhaps that has something to do with it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

*Bump*<br /><br />An addendum:<br /><br /><b>MESSENGER Mission News</b><br /><br />June 21, 2006<br /><br /><b>MESSENGER Flips Sunshade Toward the Sun</b><br /><br /><i>The MESSENGER spacecraft performed its final “flip" maneuver for the mission on June 21. Responding to commands sent from the MESSENGER Mission Operations Center at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., through NASA's Deep Space Network antenna station near Goldstone, Calif., the spacecraft rotated 180°, pointing its sunshade toward the Sun.<br /><br />The 16-minute maneuver, designed to keep MESSENGER operating at safe temperatures as it moves closer to the Sun, wrapped up at 9:34 a.m. EDT, with successful reacquisition of signal from MESSENGER’s front-side antenna. The spacecraft was 196.5 million kilometers (122.1 million miles) from Earth and 144.6 million kilometers (89.8 million miles) from the Sun when the maneuver occurred.<br /><br />MESSENGER had been flying with its back to the Sun since a March 8 “flop,” allowing it to maintain temperatures within safe operating ranges at Sun distances greater than 0.95 astronomical units (1 AU is Earth’s distance from the Sun). Mission plans call for the spacecraft to keep its sunshade facing the Sun for the remainder of its cruise and science orbital operations around Mercury.<br /><br />"Initial indications look very good” says MESSENGER Mission Operations Manager Mark Holdridge, of APL. "Spacecraft temperatures are coming down as expected and all systems and instruments are nominal.”<br /><br />The team will now turn its attention to preparing for the first Venus flyby on October 24. “We have mission simulations and flight tests coming up to test particular operations that will have to occur during the Venus flyby,” Holdridge says. “There will be a 57-minute solar eclipse during the October operation, so we will be testing the flight systems in the flyby configuration to verify they will behave properly during the eclipse period.</i> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[3488]

Thanks for that. I see what you mean. What amazed me was how quickly MESSENGER receded. The Earth literally shrank in only a matter of a few hours. <br /><br />Does anyone remenber the Galileo spacecraft Earth rotation movie during the first encounter & the moon passing by Earth during the second encounter??<br /><br />Does anyone know what parts of Mercury MESSENGER will see during the pre-orbital encounters. I hope we get to see the area that Mariner 10 could not. We will then know for sure whether or not the hemisphere seen by Mariner 10 is representative of Mercury as a whole. I am really interested in the Volcanic history of Mercury. Are there large shield volcanoes on the unseen hemisphere?? Or is it more of what we have already seen, large scarps running across, lava plains with impact craters???<br /><br />Any ideas about the huge iron core of Mercury, why it is so large in relation to the rest of the planet??<br /><br />Maybe another thread??<br /><br />Once again, thank you for this thread. I will watch you link again later, I hope that it will be put on a NASA DVD at some point, along with the Mars Exploration Rover movies as they drive across Mars, & the Cassini spacecraft observations of the movements of Saturn's moons, etc. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>