Messenger delivers first Mercury orbital snap

NASA's Messenger has returned the first photograph taken by a spacecraft circling Mercury, a tad under two weeks after it went into orbit around the solar system's innermost planet. Messenger image of Mercury. Pic: NASA The agency explains* that the snap was taken at 09:20 GMT on 29 March, and over the next six hours, …

[Winkypop]

Science!

Who said it was boring?

Flame: It's rather warm on Mercury, however not as hot as on Venus.

[Luther Blissett]

But

neither is as hot as in Paris.

// umbrella, for Singing in the Rain

[Andy 97]

Amazing stuff

You're likely to be able to run the whole thing off an Android phone these days.

Still, you can see why NASA people tend to be pretty bright!

[Anonymous Coward]

Impressive

Having previously worked on and flown satellites for a number of years, I know how chunky space certified hardware can be. It's quite a feat to keep nearly a dozen scientific instruments under 50kg in weight. Hats off to the space boffins.

[CraigRoberts]

Amazing stuff...

... I just wish the the lunatics on this planet (on all sides) would all hurry up and die out so that we can spend more resource on exploring the universe instead of blowing people up...

[Blitz]

Now lets go back to Venus

This is truly amazing - but it would be even more so if we were to send a probe to the surface of venus that could last longer than 40 minutes. Appreciate the atmospheric pressures and temp on Venus makes this a challenge but surely it would be worth it?

The Russian probe that was there in ('78?) lasted all of 20 some odd minutes before dying. I would think we could do better than this now.

[IglooDude]

It wasn't the atmosphere...

It was Venusian snu-snu. They have a thing for alien probes. Twenty minutes was and is still quite respectable under the circumstances.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.

There was a young women from Venus, who's head was shaped like a ......

[dssf]

Remember the STTNG Episode

Data: There once was a woman from Venus, whose body was shaped like a—

Picard: DATA! Ahna-tha tyme, puhr-haps!

LaForge/Ryker/Crusher/Others on bridge watch laugh, knowingly... while Data fails to immediately realize the trouble or inappropriateness of his attempt at humour...

(STTNG: The Naked Now)

[Stevie]

Bah!

"Appreciate the atmospheric pressures and temp on Venus makes this a challenge"

Not to mention all the boiling hot concentrated sulphuric acid vapour.

And all that radioactivity on the way there.

And the hard vacuum. A bugger on moving parts, months in hard vacuum.

[IMVHO]

Venus is on acid

Clouds of sulfuric acid, chlorine, and everyone's favorite, fluorine. That's all with a temperature that is hot enough to melt soft metals (about twice what a good BBQ can achieve).

Women...though I do love them, I think I'm happy to be from Mars.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: going back to Venus

I'm not sure about "now" versus "then", since I can't think of too many advances that would help.

The pressure isn't a problem, if you can deliver enough weight to the planet's surface. We know how to build strong things. The main problem is the temperature: 450-500 Celsius. Almost none of your instruments will work at that temperature and keeping them significantly cooler on a permanent basis is going to be Hard. Oh, and any solution also has to withstand chemical attack from the boiling hot sulphuric acid they have there instead of rain.

Your best bet might be to evacuate the interior of a transparent (glass?) strong-box and magnetically levitate the instruments in the middle, but this obviously restricts the range of instruments that you can deploy. (No magnetometers, for example.)

[ian 22]

GMT?

NASA still use GMT? Is this how they avoid making mistakes converting to/from UTC?

[Lester Haines]

Re: GMT?

They do not - they oscillate between Eastern and Pacific time according to their mood. It's a right pain in the backside having to continually convert to a time zone people actually understand.

[Pigeon]

Wasser difference?

I thought there was 'Astronomical time', which is different from UCT in some miniscule way. I can't expect to remember, since my Nukes have been Fongled. Maybe there isn't any leap-second stuff.

[Jams]

Time

Erm, correct me if I'm mistaken but doesn't GMT = UTC?

[SImon Hobson]

RE: Time

>> Erm, correct me if I'm mistaken but doesn't GMT = UTC?

Actually no, but very very close. Normally within a second of each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time

[Gordon Barret]

Power

Wow - sure looks like a LOT of equipment, however being that close to the Sun would really help the solar cells! a bit of a problem cooling in the 'daytime' tho ...

[IMVHO]

It is nicely framed

But in which frame of reference? "The snap was taken at 09:20 GMT", would that be from the perspective of Mercury, or Earth? Surely, there is a few minutes worth of travel at the speed of light between the two.

Mine is the one with a smallish rock in the pocket.

[Steve Foster]

In this Context...

GMT is Global Mercury Time, obviously.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

GMT

""The snap was taken at 09:20 GMT", would that be from the perspective of Mercury, or Earth?"

There is only one GMT in the entire Universe and it's where Greenwich and its meridian are.

[ShaggyDoggy]

Craters

It's just a load of craters.

Presumably 23 of them are full of some sort of moondust.