MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion |
MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion |
Apr 20 2005, 11:22 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 563 Joined: 29-March 05 Member No.: 221 |
Launched on August 3rd 2004, NASA's MESSENGER will become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.
News and updates are availbale via Johns Hopkins University MESSENGER website and the Kennedy Space Center's MESSENGER website. There will be an earth flyby in August followed by a couple of swings by Venus and three velocity scrubbing passages past mecury before the craft enters orbit in March 2011. April 18, 2005 status report from JHU. Extensive JHU FAQs page here. |
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May 31 2005, 05:02 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Uh... doesn't Messenger have a laser altimiter?... that measures reflectance, as well as delay-time which equals range...
I'd have to check, but I thought it did... |
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May 31 2005, 03:52 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
QUOTE (edstrick @ May 30 2005, 10:02 PM) Uh... doesn't Messenger have a laser altimiter?... that measures reflectance, as well as delay-time which equals range... I'd have to check, but I thought it did... Yes, the polar ice (if it exists as such) should be detectible through several instruments, and the laser altimeter is one possibility. If they are they, we will end up with image products, I'm sure, mapping them. But we won't have traditional imagery as such (I realize the distinction can be gray -- at what extent does a collection of reflectance data equal an image??). I'll add that we don't have proof yet that the shadows of the polar craters hold full-fledged surface ice deposits -- only that the areas are highly reflective in radar. They may be dust-covered ice that appear as normal regolith in vis/IR. Whatever is going on there may possibly not involve water ice, but sulfur, for example. Verifying the suspected ice and determining whether or not any such ice is on the surface is something to find out. Finally, the same investigation will be happening with regard to the (presumably similar) phenomenon at the lunar poles. I guess LRO will shed light on the lunar version before Messenger gets to Mercury. (It's quite a coincidence that of the two large airless worlds in the inner solar system, both have large areas of permanent shadow near their poles! -- this wouldn't be true of the Earth or Mars.) |
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