MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion Options

[Explorer1]

Monday release has more info:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...p;image_id=1594

The image is located just inside the southern rim of Chong Chol crater, named for a Korean poet of the 1500s. It is challenging to obtain good images when the spacecraft is very low above the planet, because of the high speed at which the camera's field of view is moving across the surface. Very short exposure times are used to limit smear, and this image was binned from its original size of 1024 x 1024 pixels to 512 x 512 to improve the image quality.

[JRehling]

I noticed the soft edges too...very lunar in appearance at this scale. Wonder if that means that micrometeoroid flux is more or less the same in Mercury's region as it is out here.

Morphology on an airless body where impact cratering is the only major factor should tell us about the distribution of impactor sizes (by "impactor" I include everything from mountain-sized to dust), but not their flux. If you decreased flux 5x across the whole distribution or increased it 5x, you'd get the same appearance. So what we seem to be seeing is that the size distribution of impactors is lunar-like.

[dvandorn]

I have also read that the Moon is at saturation when it comes to craters at the sizes of 5 meters and below. That means that continuing cratering doesn't add more craters at any greater rate than it erases old craters such that the crater population becomes relatively stable. I would guess that's true for Mercury, also.

-the other Doug

[Holder of the Tw...]

Time to begin the death watch for MESSENGER.

Tomorrow

As of this moment MESSENGER is 3921 days from launch, has spent 1503 days in orbit around Mercury and has completed 4101 orbits.

Since it takes 8 hours to orbit, and the team hasn't narrowed the time frame down from simply April 30 as far as I know, I would guess that the spacecraft has between two and five orbits to go yet.

[nprev]

Just now on FB:

"Well my lithobraking will occur tomorrow @ 3:26pm EDT". That would be 30 Apr/1926 GMT.

Gonna miss this great little mission.

[Explorer1]

Estimated impact location:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...p;image_id=1602

At least it should not be too hard for Bepi-Colombo to find whatever remains...

[Bjorn Jonsson]

An amazingly successful mission that will be missed. I always find it a bit sad when a perfectly working spacecraft runs out of fuel, resulting in end of mission - usually immediately but MESSENGER has been an exception from that rule.

[Floyd]

Thanks MESSENGER team. Great mission which has been fantastically successful in science and outreach.

[Astro0]

Thanks to the entire mission team and thanks MESSENGER for all the wonderful science at Mercury.



Your own special emoji.

[Holder of the Tw...]

MESSENGER is on its way down now to join with its planet and rest from its labors.

[anticitizen2]

Just passed aphermion. Four hours left.


I had been sad for VEX and MESSENGER EOM for a while. It will be good to get it over with.
Looking forward to many, many papers and blog posts, however.

Took a screenshot of MSGR talking to the DSN for posterity.

[FOV]

Thank you MESSENGER and team.

[Doug M.]

For 4.3 billion years Mercury has spun through space, alone, unaffected by anything but the mindless physical universe: gravity, heat, the solar wind, the dynamics of its own orbit. Now, suddenly, life is going to reach out from millions of miles away, and leave a mark. A dent, a ding, a tiny nick, invisible from any great distance. But for the first time ever, the innermost planet will feel the touch of consciousness.

Condolences and profound congratulations to the MESSENGER team.


Doug M.

[Ron Hobbs]

... and so it is done!

I thought this was a poignant image released by JPL: Details of MESSENGER's Resting Place

Congratulations to all!

[pitcapuozzo]

MESSENGER's last shot of Mercury, acquired today April 30th: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...p;image_id=1596