It is time for this new topic.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=90
One interesting feature MESSENGER will get a good look at during the second flyby is the area of Mercury's surface dubbed 'Weird Terrain.'
This jumbled region of the planet's surface is antipodal to Caloris and marks the focal point of seismic waves generated by the impact.
Mariner 10 only saw half of this disturbed region, so I'm looking forward to seeing just how much havoc Caloris wreaked on the other side of Mercury.
I wonder if a good look at the Weird Terrain will yeild any new info about Mercury's interior? (at least at the time of the Caloris impact).
Do we get any polar regions imaged during any of the flybys?
That's something I'm also interested in .
I think you'll have to wait for that till the orbital insertion.
I recognize there are some controversial views regarding the Deccan Traps and the Yucatan impact on earth.
Perhaps study of Caloris/weird terrain on Mercury might help us understand possible analogous structure(s) on earth ??
I also note, flyby 2 will be flown ~ 1 mile per second slower than flyby 1.
More time for pictures and other goodies!
The flybys are all near-equatorial and, moreover, they are so close to the planet that the poles are permanently over the horizon near C/A.
Yet moreover, the interesting thing about the poles, that the bottoms of the craters may contain ice, is by definition something that can't be observed in sunlight, because they're never in sunlight. So far as Mariner 10 showed, there was nothing unusual in the visible areas of the poles.
The interesting thing will be to see the elemental spectroscopy of the north pole where any hydrogen would make a strong signal (as it did on the Moon and Mars). That will have to wait for the orbital mission. The other possibility is that some other element like sulfur is the culprit. I'm betting on ice, though, which would mean that every body in the inner solar system besides Venus has water ice at its poles. Come to think of it, it's probably about a sweep in the outer solar system, too, besides Io.
I was reading an article on Spacedaily, and ran across this real mathematical puzzler:
"Observations during this second Messenger flyby will almost complete the first high-resolution viewing of Mercury, adding another one-third of the planet surface to the 21% of territory not seen by Mariner 10 and first imaged by Messenger in January 2008," says Messenger Project Scientist Ralph McNutt.
I'm scratching my noggin over this one.
He appears to be saying: Mariner 10 + Messenger Flyby 1 = 21% unimaged, aka. 79% coverage.
But if you add another 33% coverage, you get 112% coverage, which can't be correct.
Or, perhaps: Mariner 10 + Messenger Flyby 1 = 79% Coverage. Of the 21% left unimaged, Flyby 2 will get 1/3 of that missing coverage, aka 7%, so the total coverage will go up to 86%.
Anyone want to chime in?
Mariner 10 viewed 45% of Mercury. By these numbers, Flyby 1 added 21% and Flyby 2 added 33%, summing to 99%. That works. I think 33% is a bit of an overstatement, but speaking in fractions, 29% could be the real figure, giving a total of 95%.
I still think that's an overstatement, or at least it includes areas on the limb which aren't really being effectively resolved, but the gist is that we'll see more new stuff this time than we did last time. And when it's done, we'll have viewed the great majority of Mercury's surface.
The catch is that it looks totally different depending on phase angle, so we're going to have to see everything at least twice before we've really seen it. But the orbital mission will ace that assignment.
I'm pretty sure it means 33% of the blank area. There should still be a sizeable strip left to fill in after Flyby 2, and Flyby 3 will not add anything much to it. That will have to wait until orbit.
Phil
Just one year (88 earth days) to go.
MESSENGER is solar sailing its way in to Mercury, according to http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=102.
Things should start to pick up in earnest soon.
Although flyby #2 largely covers territory already imaged by Mariner 10, I think the resolution should be much better. Also, as JR implies, seeing it at a different phase angle ought to tell us a good bit as well.
It's flyby #3 that may be hard to get excited about. A bit slower, a slightly different phase angle, but otherwise pretty much a repeat of flyby #1. But maybe we'll get lucky and see something cool anyway.
--Greg
Apparently this is the first time the technique has been used to steer a spacecraft's trajectory. Mariner 4 had solar pressure vanes as an experiment to help control attitude, with mixed results. Mariner 10 successfully adjusted its attitude with solar pressure, which extended its life. But we are talking here about adjusting course.
With the second flyby now just a month away, I have started to dig for events etc for my realtime simulation, and as always I am getting different times for the same events. I guess the closest approach time has not been inked in, but I thought I'd share my initial results anyway.
All times are Spacecraft Event Times in UTC:
Mercury closest approach (altitude 200km) on 6 Oct 2008 between 08:40 and 08:42
Horizons currently has closest approach at 06 Oct 2008 08:41:25, resulting in:
Entry into Mercury Hillsphere: 05 Oct 2008 20:33:55
Exit from Mercury Hillsphere: 06 Oct 2008 20:48:40
Again according to the Horizons information, the flyby changes the orbital elements as follows:
Periapsis: from 47.5 million km to 45.8 million km
Apoapsis: from 102.3 million km to 93.8 million km
Eccentricity: from 0.36 to 0.34
Inclination: from 6.94 deg to 7.03 deg
If anybody has more precise - or updated - information, please share, I will gladly put it on the realtime simulation
I have from a very reliable source the current best estimate (as of Friday, September 5) of flyby time being 08:40:21.4 UTC. At that time it'll be 200.2 km from Mercury.
My source has different orbital information -- is yours measured with respect to the ecliptic? I could also select "with respect to Earth mean equator" or "with respect to Mercury equator".
These are with respect to the ecliptic:
Semimajor axis: 7,596,000 before / 6,975,000 after
Periapsis radius: 4,720,000 before / 4,523,000 after
Eccentricity: 0.38 before / 0.35 after
Inclination: 6.9 before / 7.0 after
Press Kit: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/MercuryFlyby2_FinalPressKit.pdf
Is there a flyby preview video available?
The Messenger website says that there will be (if I read it correctly).
Since I downloaded the images for my realtime simulation anyway (in case that the Solar System Simulator goes down during C/A), here are the images stringed together into a movie for CA +/- 1 hour:
http://www.spaceoutreach.com/display.php?item=aa0838nimdaq15025458
But I know there are people on here who can do much more impressive movies
Mercury Flyby 2 Visualization Tool
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/encountersm2/
Hurrah!
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=205 shows the part of Mercury that will be imaged during Flyby2.
New: Mercury Flyby 2 Instrument Operations.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/movies/M2_flyby_web_sml.mov (17.8 MB)
That's great Peter!
The second Mercury flyby is slated for 2:40 a.m. MDT on Oct. 6 and the MESSENGER spacecraft will view areas not seen before by the 1974 & 1975 Mariner X flybys....
I hope that someone eventually publishes a map showing coverage by resolution from the flybys. It would visually show how well flybys can cover a world (useful for considering flybys of Galilean satellites, Triton, etc.).
First image is here:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=206
Enlargement & enhancement of Crescent Mercury.
Here's another version of the new image.
Isn't Skinakas supposed to be a dark area? Nothing on here can be interpreted as a large impact basin or 'mare' from this image. I'm on record saying Skinakas doesn't exist - we will soon know.
Phil
This spacecraft is really, really exciting!
Please excuse the uninformed question, but what is Skinakas?
The next pic is up - here's an enlarged and processed version. A nice new basin in the south but nothing like that visible in the north.
Phil
And the next...
Phil
Hi Phil,
Certainly Skinakas Does Not exist.
I really hope that the fifth image will be available soon.
That southern basin is impressive. Certainly is reminicent of a mini Caloris.
I've had a go at enlargening & sharpening each hemisphere from the original.
Northern Hemisphere enlarged.
That's the one I was trying to think of. Thanks, Emily. Nice central peak on that basin too.
Image # 5.
To me it looks less like a basin with dark spots, more like a basin with a mottled floor. Thats a bit pedentic I know but I wonder if there's a partial covering of dark lava flows on the basin (mottled) or if later impacts have excavated darker material (spots).
Caloris suggests an answer to your question!
Here's the last image in my style of processing.
Phil
The feature highlighted here may be another old impact basin, overlapped on the north side by a later double-ring basin.
Phil
The shading on the southern basin towards the terminator looks "not right" (shouldn't it be bright rather than shaded?). Or is that a processing artifact?
-Mike
i agree. it looks more like the edge of olympus mons like this.
all the other craters seem to have the shadow on the 'right' side.
Hmmm... no Skinakas? I see arc-shaped lobes of dark material, in some areas bounded by what appear to be old, degraded arcs of rimwall massif. I'm not a consummate image manipulator, but look within the crudely drawn red circle below:
Looks like a good sized impact basin to me. Though it seems to be a central pit basin, rather than a central peak basin
Doug, that looks like an optical illusion to me. I saw what you were talking about earlier, but now I really just see a chance alignment of craters.
The odd shading in the southern basin is most easily explained as one of those big lobate scarps crossing the floor, or possibly part of a multi-ring structure. That bright spot alluded to earlier - a fresh impact crater or one of those craters we saw in the first encounter with extremely bright deposits on the floor. The past (encounter 1) is the key to the present, at least to generate a first hypothesis.
As for 'skinakas' - the feature described from earth was a lot bigger than the darker spots outlined above. If there's a basin rim up there I can't see it.
Phil
I almost decided it was a chance alignment of craters, too -- but my eye keeps going back to the dark-albedo arcs to the north and south. Those seem to be independent of the craters in the area, and their arc shapes define a big circular feature. Now, it seems to me that a big circular feature like that would have to be either the degraded remnants of a huge shield volcano or the degraded remnants of a basin. Since we've seen a lot of the latter and no other indications of the former, I sort of get led down the garden path to Skinakas...
-the other Doug
It will be interesting to see if there are volcanoes at the opposite side of Caloris Basin. So far the southern side looks less cratered.
My opinion is that Skinakas is nothing more than a region relatively free of ray craters, appearing a bit darker than its surroundings. You have to look at the original paper to see how tenuous the basin interpretation was. That sort of study can be done with these early images, there's no need to wait.
Check it out here - figure 9 is the image.
http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/mercury/Ksanfomality.pdf
Phil
Just over 8 hrs to closest approach, Messenger is now inside Mercury's hill-sphere. First wave of systems flyby mode activation is now just 2 hours away. Mercury is now "growing" noticeably as seen from Messenger ... JPL's solar system simulator seems to be holding up at present, so you can still watch the auto-refreshed images and timeline ticking by on my timeline simulator at http://www.dmuller.net/messenger
A new picture appeared.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/EN0131695690M.jpg
Very nice. Now high enough res to actually do some analysis, not just make guess as to what we are seeing (even if it is a lot of fun
The southern hemisphere basin looks like a double-ring basin with a dark-halo crater near the center of it. The very bright spot in the northern hemisphere looks like a small ray crater, but very fresh with a lot bright material surrounding it. I see no evidence to support a large, northern hemisphere basin
Arrgh. VP beat me to it!
Anyway here's my contrast enhanced view of the southern multi-ring basin, and two other smaller multi-ring craters up at the top of the image. The bright reflection of the outer ring of the southern ring basin is visible (and bright like you'd expect).
Close Approach has passed. Is there any news about the spacecraft's performance during this critical stage?
The spacecraft doesn't start downlinking for several hours yet.
Thanks.
I just figured the spacecraft would be monitored throughout the encounter, and we would have word by now that the spacecraft didn't safe or something similar.
They have an update
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=110
Here's a relevant bit from it:
At a little after 4:40 a.m. EDT, MESSENGER skimmed 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface of Mercury . . .
Initial indications from the radio signals indicate that the spacecraft continues to operate nominally.
The first pictures from the flyby will be released around 10:00 a.m. on October 7, 2008.
--Greg
This is a rough fit of the inbound coverage to Steve's map, to give an idea of the locations of features. I took IanR's image (above) and projected it to make the terminator a straight line, then overlaid it on Steve's map and fiddled with the scales until there was a reasonable match between features in the radar images and these new navigation images. There are about 10 or 12 matches between radar and messenger, so I think it's roughly correct. I emphasize roughly though, as the distortions to fit this to the map are very ad hoc.
Phil
... and here is the last image from the first encounter, processed to emphasize detail on the terminator. The big bite out of the terminator is the other bit of the rim of the 'new' southern basin.
Phil
Combination of Phil Stooke's image and my image of the Southern Basin:
Just waiting for the latest images from Messenger to come in, so I thought I'd step outside my office and take a look at the 70-metre dish performing the downlink. Here's a nice view of Deep Space Station 43 currently bringing down the high priority data which should include the full-disk inbound and outbound images from yesterday's flyby.
hey Astro0 ... there's no USB plug on that thing with a cable straight to your PC?
BTW sent you updated script just now
ooo..stripy!
link for description:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=214
It is indeed.!!!!!!
I've had a go at cropping off & enlargening the previously unseen terrain towards the hermean limb.
A collage of 4 views of Mercury provided by MESSENGER:
The top two shots are January flyby WAC shots in calibrated RGB color (contrast-stretched as noted in previous threads), below are the two highest resolution shots yet released in pseudo-color based on top composites.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/9/14/1431389/mercury_combo_2.jpg
EDIT: Updated the inbound crescent with a higher resolution WAC shot just released.
Can we say that Skinakas doesn't exist? I don't see any basin.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=215
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=217
Skinakas was a ray-free area of cratered terrain, not a basin. I think a good analogy here is with the old Soviet Mountains in Luna 3 images - low resolution albedo interpreted as topography, which is unwarranted. See the link to the original Skinakas paper in post #56 above.
Phil
It looks like Tycho's all over...
The first close-ups are also in, I can't wait to see the pictures of the Caloris Antipoidal point.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=215
The level of detail in pic 217 looks eerily like a model of the lunar surface.
Here is Ugordan's montage with the Mariner 10 mosaics added.
Ted
Awesome, Ted!
Next image set:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/view.php?gallery_id=2
From caption for this http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=222:
Here's an updated version of my context map. The new WAC image doesn't quite overlap with the NAC from yesterday, but there is nice overlap with the WAC.
In the "are we there yet" spirit, given that this flyby dropped the period of Messenger's orbit from 132 days to 116 days, Flyby #3 (almost a year away) will happen in just a bit more than three orbits. Remembering that the original orbit had exactly a one-year period, we sure have come a long way!
--Greg
Here's a reprojection of the smooth plains image. If this isn't a case of volcanic plains embaying the cratered terrain I'm a monkey's uncle.
Phil
... and another one of the northern limb. This kind of reprojection makes the limb images much easier to interpret.
Phil
Is it just me or does almost every other "fresher" crater in Doug's combined image http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=4963&view=findpost&p=128146 seem to have a scarp bisecting the crater?
-Mike
Mercury's starting to look a lot like one of http://www.bonestell.com/the_chesley_bonestell_archives012.htm...
The Vivaldi release - showing that the same crater can be seen in both encounters with opposite lighting - and Juramike's post showing the big southern basin in a composite of two views - suggest that you can combine the views from these two encounters. It's possible but not perfect. Here is one hemisphere:
And a quick peek at the new image of the rayed crater near the limb, reprojected. Looks like another one with bright material inside it.
Phil
Just as Mercury has 'hot poles' does it also have, perhaps 'impact poles'; areas which (owing to Mercury's orbital and rotational properties) are likely to receive slightly more and/or slightly higher velocity impacts than other places?
No, it doesn't.
Phil
That question is ringing a bell. Wasn't there a new paper out recently saying that Mercury doesn't have impact poles, but Mars does preferentially have more impacts near the poles?
Today's two three image releases appear to be from NAC departure mosaic #3. Updated context map is attached.
Le Feuvre, M, and Wieczorek, M.A. Icarus 197 (2008) 291-306. "Non-uniform cratering of the terrestrial planets". doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2008.04.011 (freely available http://www.ipgp.jussieu.fr/~wieczor/MyPapers/Le_Feuvre_and_Wieczorek_2008.pdf!)
From the article, the authors find about 10% increased cratering at Mercury's poles compared to the equator, and Mercury's cratering flux is about 1.9x that of our moon.
-Mike
[And Emily's right, this was in the September 2008 issue of Icarus]
A news item worth noting in passing. Thanks to the solar sailing technique, the targeting for this flyby was awfully good. In fact, they are claiming it was the most accurate targeting of any planetary flyby other than earth. It came in just a wee bit under 200 km.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=112
Going back to the question about longitudinal variations in cratering, people have been looking for that for decades. I think there are some claims from modelling and some from crater counts, applied to bodies all over the solar system. I don't find any of them convincing. As for Earth focussing impacts on one side of the moon or the other - or, even worse, shading the nearside from impacts - even less convincing. Whatever slight variations there might be are either overwhelmed by saturation cratering or by various geological effects, or they fall into that class of observations which exist only in the statistics, but not in any meaningful way in reality. Show me a visible impact gradient and I'll back down!
Phil
And here's the new limb view reprojected. There's quite a bit of relief distortion.
Phil
The only body I can think of is Triton, where there is a difference in the distribution of craters between the trailing and leading hemisphere.
volcanopele: "The only body I can think of is Triton, where there is a difference in the distribution of craters between the trailing and leading hemisphere."
We have very limited coverage of Triton, not many craters, and an unknown effect from regional variations in geology (Canteloup terrain vs the plains units elsewhere) - it's not a very robust analysis.
Phil
Oh well...
Some new pics are up now, including a Mariner 10/Messenger comparison at different phase angles
The limited coverage and poorly understood geology are the keys. If the crater retention age on canteloup terrain is different from that on the plains on the other side of the disk - or even if our ability to identify small craters varies between the two areas - the whole analysis is out the window.
Phil
Back to Mercury! Some new images released today, including a limb view which I have rectified here.
Phil
These work better with flatter worlds!
That looks great!
Can't wait to see final product!
A new image from flyby 2 http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=252
Here's the full resolution post Decepticon...
http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#MERCURY
Also shown here at slightly lower resolution as an attachment:
Here's Steve's new map in polar equidistant azimuthal projection. North:
Beautiful...and distinctly alien. This is not the Moon's bigger brother.
Phil's north polar projection nicely illustrates the rays emanating from that crater at a high northern latitude. Looks like in both polar regions we see (mostly from radar) some craters where ice is suspected.
I might be able to expand the usage of a Mariner 10 south polar region image in the map. However there are apparently other high resolution Mariner 10 images near the south pole that could be added. An example would be if I can find an image that looks similar to this link below without the labels (and projected from a spacecraft point of view).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Mercury%2C_Australia_region.jpg
Here is one such image mosaic that may work even if it's a bit contrasty looking:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03101
The Chao-Meng Fu (very close to the south pole) and Bernini craters region would be the most interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chao_Meng-Fu_(crater)
So perhaps with these and other images if anyone can point to any I can improve the south polar appearance.
Steve
Latest news from MESSENGER.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=114
The pictures, graphs, and accompaning caption stories from the new conference yesterday:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/search.php?form_keywords=61
Edit - Some more stuff:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=269
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=270
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=261
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=267
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=265
The lack of a hemispherical dichotomy is interesting, though not surprising since they are likely to be the result of random events, the biggest survivable impacts. Particularly interesting to me, though not mentioned, is the small number of large basins. A few more might appear in the areas of high sun or near-limb imaging, or the small gaps still remaining, but it looks now as if Caloris is the only big basin. The Moon has quite a few roughly Caloris-sized basins (within a factor of 2 diameter, I mean) on a smaller surface.
Phil
It's proving to be interesting to navigate the Mariner South Polar mosaic (middle link two posts up) in a consistent way with the other imagery. The location of Bach from the Mariner 10 basemap (and USGS Gazeteer) at latitude -68.5 S appears to be inconsistent with the position of the south polar crater Chao-Meng Fu in the map from the top link. This map has Bach straddling the -70 S line. My next step is to try and match the Mariner SP mosaic with the -68.5 S location of Bach. I'll be curious to see if the South Pole with this solution remains inside Chao-Meng Fu. Perhaps the Wikipedia position of this crater (87.3 S, 132 W) may be a good reference point as well.
In Phil's polar projection one can see the circular feature in the underlying radar data that looks like it may in fact be Chao-Meng Fu. A cursory glance suggests that the location seems consistent with the narration above, and with the suggestion that the South Pole may lie barely outside the rim of this crater.
The south pole mosaic looks to be able to improve the resolution of my map south of around 55 S latitude, or maybe a bit further north.
Steve
I was doing a major house cleaning yesterday and came across my book "Atlas of Mercury" (NASA SP423) which I bought at the JPL bookstore on my only visit there on my Honeymoon in 1980. I have no use for it and it's in impeccable shape.
Anyone want it let me know. No charge. Preferences to Canadian residences to avoid cross border issues. I also have that huge Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas I no longer really need.
Wow, I have both of those, but they hold way to much nostalgic value for me to ever part with them.
This version of the map has slightly adjusted navigation of the Messenger images. It also has the Mariner 10 south polar mosaic included up to about 45S. Chao-Meng Fu fits nicely at the Wikipedia page location with the south pole lying just outside its rim. The similar looking crater on the radar data remains just on the other side of the south pole.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=274
MESSENGER team publishes a new image - Raphael crater!
USGS http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/HotTopics/index.php?/archives/348-New-Names-and-an-Amended-Theme-for-Mercury.html and this interesting item:
Raw images available.
http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/data/messenger/msgrmds_1001/
Thanks for the heads-up, Peter. This is sweet.
Here's the calibrated version of 4 MESSENGER single-frame-global-color views of Mercury so far:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/3444997041/
Yes, Peter, thanks for the heads up! And awesome images, Gordan.
Hmm. Anybody have any idea what the difference between the three volumes is? There's one called MDIS, one called msgrmds_1001, and one called msgrmds_2001, and they all seem to contain the same files.
--Emily
Eye-popping work as usual, Gordan!
That is really an intriguing little world, isn't it? Still can't believe how different it looks from MESSENGER than it did from Mariner 10; what a difference 30+ years in technological progress makes!
Yes, maybe a thread on Mercury's color would be an idea to consider. Meanwhile I noticed this Earth-based image showing a conjunction with the Moon and Venus that almost shows a hint of brown color in Mercury (compared with Venus)?
http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/moon_venus_mercury_conjunction-080306-300mm@f5,6-1-3sec-800asa-web.jpg
http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/latest_images-all-continuing.htm
Steve
Flyby Visualization Tools update.
Mercury Flyby 2, Planned and Actual Images
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/visualization.html
Strictly speaking, I think we're expecting some tools for Flyby 3 now, since it's just a bit over one Mercury-year away.
--Greg
Has anybody out there assembled any of the outbound NAC mosaics from Flyby 2? I'm in need of a high-resolution version of the Mercury-looks-like-a-giant-watermelon view.
--Emily
I second that request.
I have a 8,145 by 9,305 px, 6.2 Mb global mosaic from the first flyby, and have been itching for one from the second flyby as well.
I know they exist. I asked politely to see if the mission would release one, but they said no and that I could go make my own from the data in the PDS. Public engagement fail.
--Emily
Huh. That was a puzzling response by them, esp. considering your stature in the planetary science community.
Indeed, very odd o_O
Blar, does that mean I have to do it? But there are soooo many craters
I'm guessing that someone is planning to use it in a yet to be published publication, so releasing it to the press may mean that it can't be used in the publication.
Was the first flyby mosaic used in such a way?
I could give this a try (in the context of a global cylindrical map) if I had the images and navigation info in a convenient form.
Spectacular!
Great work!
I am assuming the odd stretching near the limb is an effect of Messenger's distance being less than infinite.
No, that's an effect of the control point network not doing its job... and placing the "limb" a few pixels beyond the actual limb at the bottom and a few pixels inside the limb at left and top.
Here are a few more:
http://gishbar.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-mercury-mosaics-from-messengers.html
This time I uploaded a global color mosaic, a high-resolution color mosaic, and a very high-resolution narrow-angle camera mosaic that covers a strip along Mercury's equator.
Very nice, thank-you.
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