Posted on 03/29/2011 3:46:46 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The first spacecraft ever to circle Mercury has beamed home the first-ever photo taken of the small rocky planet from orbit, showing a stark landscape peppered with craters.
NASA's Messenger spacecraft snapped the new Mercury photo today (March 29) at 5:20 a.m. EDT (0920 GMT). The photo shows the stark gray landscape of southern Mercury, a view that is dominated by a huge impact crater.
"This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the solar system's innermost planet," Messenger mission scientists explained in a statement.
The new Mercury photo shows a region around the south pole of Mercury. A 53-mile (85-kilometer) wide crater called Debussy clearly stands out in the upper right of the image, with bright rays emanating from its center.
A smaller crater called Matabei, which is 15 miles (24 km) wide and is known for its "unusual dark rays," is also visible in the image to the west of the Debussy crater, mission managers explained.
The new Mercury photo was posted to the Messenger mission website managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which is overseeing the flight for NASA.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Sounds good to me. And I'd jettison Charles Bolden along with Hansen. I'd replace them with Gene Cernan and Buzz Aldrin.
WOW! That’s some impact crater. Looks like it was hit with an extremely fast, and hard round of some kind. Whatever made a splat that big had to be really moving when it hit and I’ll betcha it struck one hell of a big spark...
If you are looking at what I’m looking at, it looks like it is leaving a shadow.
They made an extremely effective insulation blanket that the spacecraft keeps between itself and the sun at all times. It’s very light and very efficient...
There probably is a military component on there but it’s a secret.
We need to claim Mercury for the US before someone else gets it like the Canadians.
Thanks for the info/explanation.
Do they have any photos of Uranus?
Neither is any place controlled by Democrats(Detroit MI, Philadelphia PA, Camden NJ)
That's what it looks like. Has to be a protuberance of some kind.
Well, it IS away from the influence of Congress.
ROTFLMAO!
Looks like somebody been playing paintball in space................
In fact it’s hot as hell...................
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