Mercury Flyby 1 |
Mercury Flyby 1 |
Jan 10 2008, 10:56 PM
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#76
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 29-December 05 From: NE Oh, USA Member No.: 627 |
Mercury Ahead indeed.
Really looking forward to this. Since the last flyby in 1975, my two children have grown to adult hood, and I am now a granfather. Hoping the space geek gene jumps a generation to infect my grandsons. A long time to wait to complete the task of mapping Mercury... Craig |
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Jan 10 2008, 11:10 PM
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#77
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Member Group: Members Posts: 544 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
Those press conference graphics that Emily linked to are pretty impressive. Just about everything you want to know.
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Jan 10 2008, 11:15 PM
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#78
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Yeah (sigh)...I'm hoping that the spacebug gene skips a generation as well, Craig; if it isn't on "Entertainment Tonight", my daughter could care less.
MESSENGER is a huge milestone; by the time that the mission is completed, we will have mapped all of the classical planets (pre-1781) and their major moons, in our lifetimes. That is nothing short of astonishing, to say nothing of humbling. We're on our way... -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jan 10 2008, 11:48 PM
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#79
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Member Group: Members Posts: 544 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
I've noticed on the animations that some of the NAC images on approach are taken entirely within the night side. What's up with that? Is is possible for them to actually see anything in these? Maybe a bit of light from Venus on that part, but not much else.
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Jan 10 2008, 11:54 PM
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#80
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
I've noticed on the animations that some of the NAC images on approach are taken entirely within the night side. What's up with that? Is is possible for them to actually see anything in these? Maybe a bit of light from Venus, but not much else. It may be to give them some margin of error in camera pointing. At such high resolution, a relatively small error (in terms of position) could wreck havoc on a mosaic. While we were waiting, I figured I would post a link to my new Mariner-10 mosaic I posted in the Mariner-10 thread. I always wondered why Robinson's global mosaic for the receding side used much more distant frames than the approaching side, which is much larger. He did make a high resolution mosaic of this area, but with a lot of gaps and gores. After trying to work with the data myself, I understand why. http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4070/ou...hires1f1yt9.jpg -------------------- |
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Jan 11 2008, 12:05 AM
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#81
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I think also it was easier for them to sequence, and then process, an m-by-n rectangular mosaic than to delete frames here and there from the rectangle; you might notice that in some of the post-flyby mosaics, there are several corner frames that shoot right off the disk into space.
Also, a while back, I asked Louise Prockter why they sequence them typewriter style -- do a row, carriage return, do the next row, carriage return -- rather than a more economical left-to-right then right-to-left back-and-forth sweeping. She said they investigated sequencing the mosaics that way, and it's just simpler for them to process and assemble mosaics built up typewriter-style than back-and-forth style, as it makes the variation among frames more consistent. --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Jan 11 2008, 12:16 AM
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#82
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
[...]
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Jan 11 2008, 01:03 AM
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#83
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 16 Joined: 8-August 07 Member No.: 3138 |
It may be to give them some margin of error in camera pointing. At such high resolution, a relatively small error (in terms of position) could wreck havoc on a mosaic. ... http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4070/ou...hires1f1yt9.jpg OR, maybe they might catch a small moon out of shadow? I recall from a DPS poster that there are some quasi-stable phase space, searched telescopically without success but with a high background level of course. You'd think "why not wait for orbit?", except that the illumination is different and most importantly because there are no guarantees orbit will be achieved. Get as much from the flybys as possible, no predicting the future. Re satellites, I'm especially intrigued about an elongated oval feature evident in the radar images below Caloris, so well placed for this flyby (unfortunately in the Doppler ambiguous region so not included in Phil's MESSENGER radar base map). It is inclined only a bit from the equator. Perhaps a spun-down Phobos-like oblique impact? A long shot, but we'll see soon enough, hopefully. |
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Jan 11 2008, 01:59 AM
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#84
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
That would be fascinating, but got my doubts. I'd be much more inclined to believe in possible small moons for Mercury if the planet was truly Sun-synchronous in rotation, but as-is and given the tremendous gravitational influence of the Sun (to say nothing of Mercury's orbital eccentricity) I just don't see it happening due to (however minute) tidal influences.
Would be delighted to be proven wrong, however! As I mentioned to another forum member in a private message, each first orbital mission around a planet has uncovered at least one surprise; can hardly wait to see what Mercury has in store for us. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jan 11 2008, 04:31 AM
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#85
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Awesome. I knew there had to be a word for that. Boustrophedon. Now if only there would be more than two people in the audience who would understand it if I wrote it. --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Jan 11 2008, 05:30 AM
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#86
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3241 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
Excellent. All future communications from me will now be written in that style.
-------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Jan 11 2008, 05:40 AM
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#87
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1592 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
Me
.oot |
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Jan 11 2008, 05:11 PM
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#88
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
New image snapped with the Narrow Angle Camera, on January 10, 2008, when MESSENGER was a distance of just less than 2 million kilometers from Mercury.
Mercury - January 10, 2008 -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Jan 11 2008, 05:19 PM
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#89
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
Here is a new version of the first image. The processing is heavy, so interpret with caution.
-------------------- |
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Jan 11 2008, 05:20 PM
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#90
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2254 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
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