MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion |
MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion |
Oct 29 2012, 09:48 PM
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#421
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1423 Joined: 26-July 08 Member No.: 4270 |
They've just released a huge global map with four versions at different resolutions from 2.5 km/px to 250 m/px.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mosaics.html -------------------- -- Hungry4info (Sirius_Alpha)
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Nov 26 2012, 08:41 PM
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#422
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: 11-March 10 From: Houston, Texas, USA Member No.: 5259 |
Nov. 26, 2012
MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-219 NASA HOSTS NOV. 29 NEWS CONFERENCE ABOUT MERCURY POLAR REGIONS WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov, 29, to reveal new observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW in Washington. Science Journal has embargoed details until 2 p.m. on Nov. 29. The news conference will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website. NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER spacecraft has been studying Mercury in unprecedented detail since its historic arrival there in March 2011. The news conference participants are: - Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington - Sean Solomon, MESSENGER Principal Investigator, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y. - David Lawrence, MESSENGER Participating Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. - Gregory Neumann, Mercury Laser Altimeter Instrument Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. - David Paige, MESSENGER Participating Scientist, University of California, Los Angeles For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv |
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Nov 29 2012, 06:33 PM
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#423
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Member Group: Members Posts: 252 Joined: 5-May 05 From: Mississippi (USA) Member No.: 379 |
Just a bump to remind people that NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EST ( 19:00 GMT/UTC ) on Thursday, Nov, 29, to reveal new observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury.
NOV. 29 NEWS CONFERENCE ABOUT MERCURY POLAR REGIONS LINKS http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html |
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Nov 29 2012, 07:02 PM
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#424
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2083 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
Started now....
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Nov 29 2012, 07:14 PM
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#425
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2083 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
And it looks like an ice match! Perfect fit on the graph, quantitative agrees with water ice presence!
'Very compelling evidence' When combined with south pole: 100 billion to 1 trillion metric tons.... |
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Nov 29 2012, 07:15 PM
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#426
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 62 Joined: 11-July 11 Member No.: 6058 |
Wow. That's a LOT of ice.
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Nov 29 2012, 07:18 PM
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#427
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2083 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
They're talking about MLA and reflectivity now. Love the current speakers tie....
I have to leave now, hope to catch the rerun on ustream. More stuff on the messenger website: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ |
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Nov 29 2012, 07:22 PM
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#428
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 62 Joined: 11-July 11 Member No.: 6058 |
Is that a 'solar system planets' tie?
I gotta get me one of those!... |
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Nov 30 2012, 02:44 PM
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#429
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 22-September 08 From: Spain Member No.: 4350 |
So, what rocky bodies we have left with no water ice? Io and Vesta?
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Nov 30 2012, 03:08 PM
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#430
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
Venus?
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Nov 30 2012, 06:18 PM
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#431
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Phobos and Deimos, possibly. If the mean annual temperature of a very small body is >0C, then that should be the interior temperature, so the shortest-period asteroids seem very unlikely to have ice. Small bodies with interior temperatures -100C to 0C... well, who knows? In a case like that (including Phobos and Deimos) ice could be stable in the interior, so whether or not it is present depends on the body's formation history.
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Nov 30 2012, 07:00 PM
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#432
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Venus, yes. Vesta has water in the same way that most of the Moon does, bound in hydrated minerals. It doesn't have evidence for polar water that the Moon does though.
Still, it's not really a surprise that everything outside of Earth's orbit except maybe asteroids on the inner part of the asteroid belt has water on it. A more interesting question, I think, is which ones have liquid water. There, Mars is still a question mark. Many icy moons do, though some outer ones don't. Several large KBOs may. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Nov 30 2012, 11:09 PM
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#433
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 22-September 08 From: Spain Member No.: 4350 |
My bad, how did I forget Venus.
I kinda feel these last decades' shift to today's "water ice is the norm in most large rocky bodies, and liquid water not a one in a billion thing" is a Great Discovery worth singling, as much as finding the Earth is a sphere or that a whole continent was missing from Western World's maps. Water ice on Mercury, of all places, sort of wraps it. Once we get the definitive confirmation it should be a date worth remembering. |
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Dec 1 2012, 05:02 PM
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#434
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
I was reading the three latest Science papers and there is one thing that strikes me: the deposits are said to be some tens of million years old. This implies that the spin axis of Mercury must be relatively stable, More stable in fact than that of Mars. Isn't this counter-intuitive? I thought a fast rotator like Mars would be more stable than a slow rotator like Mercury...
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Dec 1 2012, 05:21 PM
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#435
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2083 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
The lack of big stabilizing moon (or any moon at all for that matter) should also make the axis unstable. And it's not tidally locked to the sun either.
Or maybe the 3:2 resonance does so in some way? |
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