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MESSENGER News Thread, news, updates and discussion
Guest_Sunspot_*
post Jun 1 2005, 08:40 AM
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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/pres...se_5_31_05.html

"NASA’s Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft – less than three months from an Earth flyby that will slingshot it toward the inner solar system – successfully tested its main camera by snapping distant approach shots of Earth and the Moon."
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um3k
post Jun 1 2005, 05:01 PM
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No focusing problems on this baby! cool.gif
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lyford
post Jun 1 2005, 06:30 PM
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I always enjoy these far off shots of Earth. They really drive home how BIG space is and how SMALL our home is...

Anybody seen a higher rez version?


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paxdan
post Jun 1 2005, 07:43 PM
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QUOTE (lyford @ Jun 1 2005, 07:30 PM)
I always enjoy these far off shots of Earth.  They really drive home how BIG space is and how SMALL our home is...

Anybody seen a higher rez version?
*


i think this is the highest we are going to get without image processing.

from the article:

The image is cropped from the full MDIS image size of 1024x1024 pixels
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 1 2005, 07:49 PM
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QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jun 1 2005, 02:48 AM)
Is Mercury's atmosphere similar to Moon rather than Mars? What is the composition of Mercury's atmosphere (hellium, hydrogen, oxygen, potassium and sodium)? Wiill the Messenger spacecraft  answer these questions?
*


It will indeed provide a great deal of additional information on Mercury's atmosphere -- which is incredibly rarified and thus similar to the Moon's atmosphere rather than Mars'. Indeed, both worlds actually have what is described as an "exosphere" -- from which the atoms and molecules escape almost immediately -- rather thann any stable atmosphere. Its surface density is only about one trillion atoms per cubic centimeter. (I'd have to look this up -- I haven't been following the discoveries regarding Mercury's atmosphere closely -- but I think this is an atmospheric density roughly a trillionth of Earth's.)

We also have confirmed recently that Mercury's exosphere contains small amounts of calcium. The exosphere seems to come from atoms "sputtered" off Mercury's surface rocks by the impacting atoms of the solar wind -- a phenomenon much more intense on Mercury than on the Moon, thanks to its closer proximity to the Sun -- and it is suspected that Mercury's magnetic field focuses this activity so that much of the sputtering occurs near the planet's poles.

Messenger's "Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer" really consists of two separate, entirely different instruments that might as well count as two separate experiments; they have little to do with each other. Its near-infrared spectrometer will map surface mineral composition, while its ultraviolet spectrometer will specialize in measuring the density, distribution and composition of the exosphere. (I don't know whether it can measure calcium, but I suspect it can -- and one of its goals will be to try to identify additional elements in the atmosphere, such as magnesium, silicon and sulfur.) Messenger's "Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer" also has some ability to directly detect different elements' ions by mass spectrometry -- again, I'd have to do some digging for the details.
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Bob Shaw
post Jun 2 2005, 09:00 PM
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Bruce:

Can Messenger's instruments detect He on the surface of Mercury? I'm thinking of those old lunar He3 strip-mining plans...

Bob Shaw


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JRehling
post Jun 3 2005, 12:53 PM
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QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Jun 2 2005, 02:00 PM)
Bruce:

Can Messenger's instruments detect He on the surface of Mercury? I'm thinking of those old lunar He3 strip-mining plans...

Bob Shaw
*


In principle, He can be detected (quite easily, in fact), but that would only be if it existed in bulk concentrations, which it certainly will not. Lunar Prospector showed no He signal I'm aware of on the Moon. The quantity just isn't much to speak of.
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Buck Galaxy
post Jun 4 2005, 02:46 AM
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QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 3 2005, 12:53 PM)
In principle, He can be detected (quite easily, in fact), but that would only be if it existed in bulk concentrations, which it certainly will not. Lunar Prospector showed no He signal I'm aware of on the Moon. The quantity just isn't much to speak of.
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Huh? I thought the moon's regolith was full of He3?
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Phil Stooke
post Jun 4 2005, 03:05 AM
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Buck Galaxy said:

Huh? I thought the moon's regolith was full of He3?



No - it has minute amounts of He3. Major strip-mining would be needed to collect the amounts needed for the proposed power schemes.

Phil


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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 4 2005, 05:55 AM
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Specifically, it's about one part He-3 per 100 million -- which gives you a better idea of the serious problems with mining the Moon for He-3 even if we finally do figure out how to fuse the stuff commercially (which we are absolutely nowhere near right now).
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Bob Shaw
post Jun 4 2005, 05:26 PM
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Mining the moon for He3 would, of course, give us access to all sorts of other things in the process - not least being meteorites from Earth, Mars, Venus and so on. Possibly even fossils from a certain nearby life-bearing planet (our own!).


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Toma B
post Jun 15 2005, 04:41 PM
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So there will not be another image of Earth for how long? huh.gif
Why don't they snap a picture at least once a week? blink.gif


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My "Astrophotos" gallery on flickr...
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 16 2005, 02:56 AM
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Because Messenger is usually too close to Earth to see it as more than a speck -- only during its close flybys of Earth will its camera be able to see Earth clearly. (I believe there is only one more Earth flyby planned before it moves on to using repeated flybys first of Venus and then of Mercury itself to finally put itself into an orbit almost parallel to Mercury, thus allowing it to use an acceptably small amount of fuel to finally brake into orbit around Mercury itself. The Europa Orbiter -- when they finally fly it -- will, after it enters orbit around Jupiter, use repeated flybys of Callisto, Ganymede, and finally Europa itself to match orbits in a similar way with Europa before braking into orbit around Europa.)
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Jun 16 2005, 02:57 AM
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"Because Messenger is usually too close to Earth to see it as more than a speck..."

Gaaah. I'm going senile. Make that "too FAR FROM Earth to see it as more than a speck".
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gpurcell
post Jun 16 2005, 03:34 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Jun 16 2005, 02:56 AM)
Because Messenger is usually too close to Earth to see it as more than a speck -- only during its close flybys of Earth will its camera be able to see Earth clearly.  (I believe there is only one more Earth flyby planned before it moves on to using repeated flybys first of Venus and then of Mercury itself to finally put itself into an orbit almost parallel to Mercury, thus allowing it to use an acceptably small amount of fuel to finally brake into orbit around Mercury itself.  The Europa Orbiter -- when they finally fly it -- will, after it enters orbit around Jupiter, use repeated flybys of Callisto, Ganymede, and finally Europa itself to match orbits in a similar way with Europa before braking into orbit around Europa.)
*


Bruce, do you know if they are planning to do science during the Venus encounters?
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