Posted on 05/01/2025 2:27:32 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: The first to orbit inner planet Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft came to rest on this region of Mercury's surface on April 30, 2015. Constructed from MESSENGER image and laser altimeter data, the projected scene looks north over the northeastern rim of the broad, lava filled Shakespeare basin. The large, 48 kilometer (30 mile) wide crater Janacek is near the upper left edge. Terrain height is color coded with red regions about 3 kilometers above blue ones. MESSENGER'S final orbit was predicted to end near the center, with the spacecraft impacting the surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour) and creating a new crater about 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. The impact on the far side of Mercury was not observed by telescopes, but confirmed when no signal was detected from the spacecraft given time to emerge from behind the planet. Launched in 2004, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemisty and Ranging spacecraft completed over 4,000 orbits after reaching the Solar System's innermost planet in 2011.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Interesting.
🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔
Our moon...nothing there, why should we go back?
Venus...nothing there, why should we go back?
Mars...nothing there, why should we go back?
Mercury...nothing there, why should we go back?
If you had been alive in 1492, you would have warned Christopher Columbus not to sail off into the ocean blue because the world is flat and he would fall off.
A question on Jeopardy last night was “What’s the hottest planet in the Solar System “? Nobody got it. It was Venus, of course, and nobody got it.
Simply amazing. And to think, when I was born there were water canals crisscrossing Mars and our Moon was made of cheese!
Yes, and since then the canals have been filled in and the cheese moon has moulded into gray dust. I guess that's progress for you.
I’m starting to get the feeling that, except for the gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, every planet, moon, or asteroid out there except ours resembles nothing more spectacular than a well-worn golf ball.
We are only as good as our instruments.
Hah, it’s flat just like Earth according to the Flat Earth Society. I can prove an inflated basketball is flat too.
And the Earth was the center of the universe
If you had been alive in 1492, you would have warned Christopher Columbus not to sail off into the ocean blue because the world is flat and he would fall off.
Personally, I think the only humans that will ever set foot on Mars will be the rich vacationers that can afford to go there - after robots build the facility.
What about Jupiter?
I see it as a bit of a trick question. Since jupiter doesn’t have a surface as we think of it, you can go all the way down to it’s core, where the temp can be 40,000 degrees F
https://www.telescopenerd.com/celestial-objects/jupiter.htm
We won’t live long enough to see it, but I suspect Mars and beyond will not be simply a destination for rich vacationers.
Europa and Ganymede are pretty interesting.
You think YOU had to live with disappointment.
with the spacecraft impacting the surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour) and creating a new crater about 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter.
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And thereby destroying all dinosaur life on Mercury.
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