Globes of the planet MERCURY Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Please post Your photos of Mercury globes [attachment=8785:attachment]

[ugordan]

First you show us the other half!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Although Mariner 10 made 3 fly by passes of the inner planet, we only came up with this globe

[attachment=8787:attachment]

[odave]

That side should have the text "Coming in 2011" printed on it

[JRehling]

[...]

[As old as Voyage...]

Baumgardner's composite images of a portion of Mercury's unseen hemisphere would fill a good chunk of that incognitia. They're beautiful:

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0005/28mercury/index.html

[odave]

As a followup to JRehling's post, from the Messenger FAQ page

10. How long will MESSENGER take to gather data on Mercury's entire surface?

Depends on the scientific instrument. MESSENGER will have photographed most of the surface after the three Mercury flybys. It will have flown over every part of Mercury (except a small circular area at each pole, which must be viewed obliquely) after three months in orbit, and the team will have viewed -- in sunlight – the entire planet after six months in orbit. Stereo imaging, as well as our best global models of surface chemistry, internal magnetic field geometry and the planetary gravity field, will come only after the full Earth year in orbit.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Here's another globe view of the now smallest planet of the solar system

[attachment=8788:attachment]

[t_oner]

Here is a globe from me.

The main problem with Mercury radar is north-south ambiguity. It is not possible to make a photomosaic unless you are able distinguish a feature's location as there are two of them in a given radar image.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Modern version of a Mercury globe [attachment=8801:attachment]

[JRehling]

[...]

[tedstryk]

Otherwise, much of Mercury, like the far side of the Moon and Callisto, Rhea, etc., looks (and is!) just random circles on a bland background. Unless you were a serious student of the cartography, you wouldn't know the real map from a "spoof" with similar characteristics.

Very true...it can be seen in Mariner-10 shots like this one, a wide angle shot taken from below the south pole near closest approach during the second flyby (and the only such photo taken at anything resembling an angle like this.)

[edstrick]

That picture was taken by stepping the filter wheel from the clear channel (I presume) position to the wide-angle position (wide angle was done with a fiber optic bundle to a "parasitic" wide angle lens on top of telephoto lens), then back to the clear channel.

I think, though I may be wrong, that the camera hit the various color filter positions and took a frame at each step in this sequence. I don't know but there might be a little useful color data in random frame overlap from this sequence.

Other color work that's been published (?Robinson's?) is from the approach and fly-out mosaics on Encounter 1.

[edstrick]

Additional comment: This is the picture I call the "Moldy Orange" shot. Not a pretty planet.

It is our only good overall view of albedo patterns near the sub-solar point and across the southern hemisphere. The original post-mission mosaics from the narrow angle images show mosaic albedo mis-matches and assorted camera shading problems, or were high-pass filtered and obliterate regional brightness variation. I'm not sure if better full-disc mosaics have been published that reduce mosaic-mottles to below the noise level of this image.

[karolp]

From what I see Baumgardner's composite images show the "unknown" hemisphere to be even more Moon-like with a rayed crater and a large "mare"-like structure. Is it possible that Solar tides have induced lava outflows which formed Mercurian "maria" just like those on the "near" side of the Moon? Did Mariner 10 photograph the "near" (facing Sun) or "far" side of Mercury?