Mercury Flyby 1 |
Mercury Flyby 1 |
Feb 9 2008, 04:52 AM
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#556
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
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Feb 9 2008, 07:36 AM
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#557
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3233 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
That day spent in cruise between the orbits of Europa and Io will set up a real horrorshow before Io fills the window. Why would it be a horrorshow? Just make sure you have some good radiation protection and/or man up.I have a very hard time imagining what it would be like on the surface of Io -- e.g., what would you be standing on if you landed? Or could you even stand up at all? I suppose a (rather sturdy) umbrella would be a good piece of apparatus to have... Well, that all depends on where you are. A good chunk of the surface is smooth plains covered in sulfur/sulfur dioxide frost. Think Antarctica, but yellower (but sometimes white-grey). Sometimes it would look like Iceland. But overall, you could, just as long as you have good radiation protection (NEVER leave home without that) and a good spacesuit.Just be aware of your surroundings: Don't be a plume fallout zone (imagine a light hailstorm), don't stand around in a lava lake, etc. -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Feb 9 2008, 11:15 AM
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#558
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
Before this thread ends its days, I thought I'd share a movie with you all.
This is a scrunched down version...I'll have to find somewhere to post the larger version. Outbound_Mercury.wmv ( 877.11K ) Number of downloads: 1290 Enjoy Astro0 |
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Feb 9 2008, 03:56 PM
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#559
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 24-December 06 Member No.: 1512 |
...I'll have to find somewhere to post the larger version. Outbound_Mercury.wmv ( 877.11K ) Number of downloads: 1290 Astro0, try www.vuze.com. The people behind the Azureus BitTorrent client run this site. |
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Feb 14 2008, 03:20 PM
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#560
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Rover Driver Group: Members Posts: 1015 Joined: 4-March 04 Member No.: 47 |
A new release:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...mp;image_id=161 lots of evidence for lava flows. Mercury seems to come a bit more to life with these kinds of explanations. |
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Feb 14 2008, 04:24 PM
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#561
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Special Cookie Group: Members Posts: 2168 Joined: 6-April 05 From: Sintra | Portugal Member No.: 228 |
Mercury seems to come a bit more to life with these kinds of explanations. Speaking about life... What's that feature casting a shadow at the blue arrow's end? Mercury's MegaFoot?... -------------------- "Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied, "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Alan Poe |
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Feb 28 2008, 03:13 PM
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#562
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
An interesting oblique view of craters in the Caloris basin was released yesterday:
Craters in Caloris It nicely brings home the fact Mercury's topography is more subdued than on the Moon, take note of the horizon in particular. -------------------- |
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Feb 28 2008, 04:25 PM
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#563
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
That is true, though not surprising, since it has a mass similar to that of Mars.
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Mar 6 2008, 03:59 PM
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#564
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
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Mar 22 2008, 12:34 AM
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#565
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10151 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Another very nice new release at the Messenger site:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...mp;image_id=174 Fractures in Caloris. The first releases didn't show the real level of detail we would get inside Caloris. Also, the bright halo feature I noted on here earlier was described at LPSC as a probable volcanic vent, and a few others were noted. An interesting place! Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Mar 22 2008, 02:56 AM
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#566
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
That new image is a really interesting one, Phil. Not only are there a lot of extensional graben, there are many different flow features. The main flows in which the majority of the fresh-looking graben are cut have definite flow boundaries along the lower left of the image, trending up and to the left.
The most interesting thing to my eye are the filled-in grabens as you approach the large dark-rim-ray crater in the upper right. If you look carefully, you can see hints of a lava flow front overlaying the main, cracked flow that makes up a majority of the scene. It is above and to the right of this subtle flow front that we see a number of filled-in and "ghost" graben. So... there must have been lava flows in Caloris *after* the uplift that formed the graben. That's *very* interesting... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Mar 24 2008, 06:16 PM
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#567
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3233 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
There is a new article in press in Icarus titled: "Radar imagery of the southern Caloris region, Mercury" by John K. Harmon. This paper covers RADAR mapping from Arecibo of the area on Mercury between 172 W and 228 W, and 22 S and 32 N. This area covers much of the terrain seen by MESSENGER in January. The southern part of the Caloris basin is clearly visible. In that basin, and comparing to the graphic at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...ics/Strom01.jpg , the two-ring impact crater at lower center, the "spider" crater, and the ray crater to the west of the "spider" crater are clear visible. At least two of the troughs (both trending NW-SE) are visible at the spider crater. No clear rays are visible at the ray crater in the radar map, though Harmon was right in suggesting that this was a fresher crater based on the bright halo around it. The two-ring crater has two rings, though from the text, he seemed to only consider the inner ring as a crater, though he does suggest that it is a two-ring impact basin.
-------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Mar 25 2008, 06:55 PM
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#568
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
New article in space.com describes how Mercury's cliffs seem aligned N-S. This is attributed to thin mantle shell convection.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0803...ury-cliffs.html -Mike -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Mar 26 2008, 09:54 AM
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#569
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
During the post-Mariner analysis days, there was considerable effort to determine the latitude distribution and any preferred orientation of the scarps. Mercury was <is?> modeled as an initial ?normally? fast rotator (like Earth and Mars) that underwent tidal de-spinning till it was caught in the 3/2 resonance it's in today. The equator would have been spread out a bit and the poles sucked-in and flattened a bit. Despinning the planet should have resulted in crustal compression at the equator and stretching at the poles, with the stress at the equator being decidedly directional.
The models looked at the effects of the competition between despinning and relatively faster or slower global contraction on global stress patterns and resulting global faulting patterns. In some models, you'd see the effects balancing out at some latitudes resulting in no scarps or fractures, in other models, there's be scarps at some latitudes and graben <not seen> at others. There would also be directional orientations of the scarps at some latitudes. As I recall, the Mariner data showed little global variation in scarp abundance or orientation within the two low-to-moderate sun-angle zones where surface relief was well imaged. It's unclear to me whether some global variation was eventually teased out of the Mariner data or has only become apparent when much of the Mariner hi-sun-angle zone was imaged at lower sun angles and an entirely new longitude range was imaged with good illumination. Either way, there seems to be no mention of the old model work in the new analysis with mantle convection stress added to global contraction stresses in the press-release and media coverage of the new model work that I've seen. The emergence of geophysically meaningful planetary convection modeling on computer since the Mariner analysis days has resulted in the addition numical simulation experiments like these to planetary geophysics. Impressive capabilities, indeed! |
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Mar 27 2008, 06:56 PM
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#570
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Mozart Crater and surrounding plane (1973).
Mozart Crater and surrounding plane (2008). It's interesting how different it looks in different lightning conditions. -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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