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Happy 50th birthday to the telescope that brought us the first map of Venus, revealed ice on Mercury, and more. When Cornell University built the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico -- near the equator, so it could observe the planets without needing to move its 1,000-foot-wide reflector -- people hadn't even set foot on the moon yet. They wouldn't for another six years. Since its construction, Arecibo has contributed to generations of astronomy. Researchers first set its radar and radio instruments to discover basics, such as the speed of Mercury and Venus' rotations and the surface features of the moon...

Back in December, I wrote about the absurdity of the EPA claim that coal-fired power plants produced significant mercury which necessitated drastic reductions at any cost. I was then puzzled that the EPA did not produce maps of the mercury concentrations that would show the mercury was found in higher concentrations downwind of coal-fired power plants. It turns out that maps of the concentrations of mercury do exist and can be examined. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program produces annual maps of the mercury concentrations across the USA here. Note that the mercury high concentration areas changed somewhat between 2009 and...

<p>M. Scott Carpenter, whose flight into space in 1962 as the second American to orbit the Earth was marred by technical glitches and ended with the nation waiting anxiously to see if he had survived a landing far from the target site, died on Thursday in Denver. He was 88 and one of the last two surviving astronauts of America’s original space program, Project Mercury.</p>

Permanently shadowed craters on the moon or Mercury are one of the most exciting locations to search for water. Because the walls of these craters protect certain spots inside from the rays of the sun, it’s quite possible for ice to lurk inside of there. We’ve found ice on so-called airless worlds because of this trick of geometry. So how about exploring them? What’s the best way to do so? The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts office suggests using TransFormers to get inside these places. No, not the awesome robots you see in the movies, but still something that has a...

Ford justified killing Mercury because Mercury wasn't providing a sufficient chunk of market share in the US. Ford recently announced how much market share Lincoln has and it makes Mercury look good. Justin Berkowitz at Car and Driver made the association, citing Ford's 2010 statement explaining why they were ending the Mercury Brand. Mercury originally was created as a premium offering to Ford and was an important source of incremental sales. Of Ford Motor Company’s 16 percent market share in the U.S., Mercury accounts for 0.8 percentage points, a level that has been flat or declining for the past several...

Explanation: What it would look like to leave planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it swung back past the Earth, eight years ago, on its way in toward the planet Mercury. Earth can be seen rotating in this time-lapse video, as it recedes into the distance. The sunlit half of Earth is so bright that background stars are not visible. The robotic MESSENGER spacecraft is now in orbit around Mercury and has recently concluded the first complete map of the surface. On occasion, MESSENGER has continued to peer back at...

Explanation: In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting the gas giant. Pictured on the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against a dark background, as captured by the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft now orbiting Mercury. In the MESSENGER image, the Earth (left) and Moon (right) shine brightly with reflected sunlight. MESSENGER took the overexposed image last Friday as part of a search for small...

The effects of relativity can be seen in everyday phenomena © ShutterstockWhy is mercury a liquid at room temperature? If you ask that question in a school classroom you will probably be told that relativity affects the orbitals of heavy metals, contracting them and changing how they bond. However, the first evidence that this explanation is correct has only just been published.An international team led by Peter Schwerdtfeger of Massey University Auckland in New Zealand used quantum mechanics to make calculations of the heat capacity of the metal either including or excluding relativistic effects. They showed that if they...

Explanation: For the first time, the entire surface of planet Mercury has been mapped. Detailed observations of the innermost planet's surprising crust have been ongoing since the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft first passed Mercury in 2008 and began orbiting in 2011. Previously, much of the Mercury's surface was unknown as it is too far for Earth-bound telescopes to see clearly, while the Mariner 10 flybys in the 1970s observed only about half. The above video is a compilation of thousands of images of Mercury rendered in exaggerated colors to better contrast different surface features. Visible on the rotating world are rays...

Mercury, traveling in its 88-day-long orbit around the Sun with basically zero axial tilt, has many craters at its poles whose insides literally never see the light of day. These permanently-shadowed locations have been found by the MESSENGER mission to harbor considerable deposits of ice (a seemingly ironic discovery on a planet two-and-a-half times closer to the Sun than we are!*) But if there are places on Mercury where the Sun never shines (insert butt joke here) then there may also be places where it always does. That’s what researchers are looking for in illumination maps made from MESSENGER data…...

The green rock found in Morocco last year may be the first known visitor from the solar system's innermost planet, according to meteorite scientist Anthony Irving, who unveiled the new findings this month at the 44th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The study suggests that a space rock called NWA 7325 came from Mercury, and not an asteroid or Mars. NWA 7325 is actually a group of 35 meteorite samples discovered in 2012 in Morocco. They are ancient, with Irving and his team dating the rocks to an age of about 4.56 billion years. Irving...

Did you know that consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the U.S. -- which can be found in a plethora of cookies, candies and fast-foods -- has increased by a a whopping 10,673 percent between 1970 and 2005? So reports the USDA Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in U.S. Food Consumption report. Are you one of millions, who, according to the USDA report, consume one-quarter of your calories from added sugars, most of which comes from high fructose corn syrup, as mercola.com pointed out? Meanwhile, have you heard about the a recent study, which reveals that a diet...

Explanation: The colors of the solar system's innermost planet are enhanced in this tantalizing view, based on global image data from the Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER spacecraft. Human eyes would not discern the clear color differences but they are real none the less, indicating distinct chemical, mineralogical, and physical regions across the cratered surface. Notable at the upper right, Mercury's large, circular, tan colored feature known as the Caloris basin was created by an impacting comet or asteroid during the solar system's early years. The ancient basin was subsequently flooded with lava from volcanic activity, analogous to the formation of the lunar...

Explanation: Have you ever seen the planet Mercury? Because Mercury orbits so close to the Sun, it never wanders far from the Sun in Earth's sky. If trailing the Sun, Mercury will be visible low on the horizon for only a short while after sunset. If leading the Sun, Mercury will be visible only shortly before sunrise. So at certain times of the year an informed skygazer with a little determination can usually pick Mercury out from a site with an unobscured horizon. Above, a lot of determination has been combined with a little digital manipulation to show Mercury's successive...

Scientists working on Nasa's Messenger probe to Mercury have shown off a stunning new colour map of the planet. It comprises thousands of images acquired by the spacecraft during its first year in orbit. This is not how we would see Mercury, which would look like a dull, brownish-grey globe to our eyes. Rather, the map represents an exaggerated view of the planet that is intended to highlight variations in the composition of its rock. "Messenger's camera has filters that go from the blue to the near-infrared of the spectrum, and we are able to use computer processing to enhance...

The import or export of mercury is set to be banned © ShutterstockAfter six days of complex discussions in Geneva last week, governments from around the world agreed to a global, legally-binding treaty on Saturday to limit mercury use. This is the first new major environmental treaty in over a decade.The Minamata Convention on Mercury – named after the Japanese city where thousands of residents fell ill with mercury poisoning in the 1950s – covers a range of products and processes where mercury is used or released. Countries will be invited to ratify the treaty, which took four years to...

While we all know mercury is poisonous it is methylmercury, the organic form, that bioaccumulates in food webs and is highly toxic. It's been acknowledged for years that methylmercury is produced by microorganisms far down the food chain, but what has not been known is how they do it. US-based researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have now identified the genes, and hence the proteins, involved in mercury methylation and suggest that the pathway is common for all mercury methylating microorganisms.Using gene deletion, Jerry Parks' team showed that two genes are key components of bacterial mercury methylation, relating...

Explanation: Innermost planet Mercurywould probably not be a good location for an interplanetary winter olympics. But new results based on data from the Mercury orbitingMESSENGER spacecraft indicate that it does have substantial water icein permanently shadowed regions within craters near its north pole. The possibility of ice on Mercury has been entertained for years, inspired by the discovery of radar bright, hence highly reflective, regions near the north pole. Highlighted in yellow in this map based on projected MESSENGER images, radar bright regions are seen to correspond with floors and walls of north polar impact craters. Farther from the pole...

New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters. Three independent lines of evidence support this conclusion: the first measurements of excess hydrogen at Mercury's north pole with MESSENGER's Neutron Spectrometer, the first measurements of the reflectance of Mercury's polar deposits at near-infrared wavelengths with the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA), and the first detailed models of the surface and near-surface temperatures of Mercury's north polar regions that utilize the actual topography of Mercury's surface measured by the MLA. These...

Forget Wimpy Plans and NIMBYs, Let's Solve the Energy Crisis by Blowing Up Mercury Posted by Derek_Mead on Wednesday, Apr 04, 2012 Save this post NextPrev Add This With all the squabbling about oil killing us all, climate change screwing with polar bears, nuclear plants falling apart, solar panels sucking on a cloudy day, and wind turbines scything through migratory birds with a gory violence best explained by an Omega Crom song, there’s a big point that all the complainers in the energy debate are ignoring: These days, we are being huge wimps. Millennia ago us humans were building...