Messenger and Mercury - a month to go!

[jetlack]

<br />Just wanted to say I am super excited that in about 30 days we will get our first view of Mercury for 30 years, and this view should be pretty spectacular considering the last imaging equipement used in the Mariner pass by.<br /><br />I am intrigued by the possibility that ther is frozen water in craters at the poles. The large crater with a Chinese name (sorry cant remmeber) is apprently half in and out of the sunlight. That transition point between light and shade must be a phenomenal sight...if only one could see it <br /><br />

 

[3488]

Hi Jetlack.<br /><br />I too am pretty excited about this.<br /><br />Unfortunately, closest approach takes place over Mercury's nightside. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />This enounter will be similar to Mariner 10's first encounter, when Mercury will display <br />two approx half phases, inbound & outbound.<br /><br />We will see approx 30% of the unimaged hemisphere & you are thinking of the Skinakas Basin,<br />of which about 10% will be seeable (one part of the outer rim).<br /><br />During the October 2008 encounter, then about 80% of the Shinakas Basin will be imaged,<br />on the January 2008 pass, only a small percentage will be.<br /><br />The resolution of these images will be similar to Mariner 10's in the 100 - 185 metre range,<br />because as I said earlier the close pass is over the night side.<br /><br />Having said that, these images are still more than good enough to show us some new terrain<br />is considerable detail, & the remaing 70%, althouigh already imaged, will be illuminated very<br />differently to Mariner 10.<br /><br />A big difference will be the multispectral imaging, revealing surface composition.<br /><br />So yes, this is going to be very exciting.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <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>

 

[CalliArcale]

Even if it's just a crescent, it'll still be exciting. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> MESSENGER does carry instruments besides cameras, so it should get some good data. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>