Mercury Flyby 1 Options

[MarsIsImportant]

40 days and counting. The long wait is almost over!

I wonder whether we will get enough data to test new simulation theories like this one.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19...solar-wind.html

What do you expect from this first flyby?

[Holder of the Tw...]

I've noticed on the animations that some of the NAC images on approach are taken entirely within the night side. What's up with that? Is is possible for them to actually see anything in these? Maybe a bit of light from Venus on that part, but not much else.

[tedstryk]

I've noticed on the animations that some of the NAC images on approach are taken entirely within the night side. What's up with that? Is is possible for them to actually see anything in these? Maybe a bit of light from Venus, but not much else.

It may be to give them some margin of error in camera pointing. At such high resolution, a relatively small error (in terms of position) could wreck havoc on a mosaic.

While we were waiting, I figured I would post a link to my new Mariner-10 mosaic I posted in the Mariner-10 thread. I always wondered why Robinson's global mosaic for the receding side used much more distant frames than the approaching side, which is much larger. He did make a high resolution mosaic of this area, but with a lot of gaps and gores. After trying to work with the data myself, I understand why.


http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4070/ou...hires1f1yt9.jpg

[gcecil]

It may be to give them some margin of error in camera pointing. At such high resolution, a relatively small error (in terms of position) could wreck havoc on a mosaic. ...

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4070/ou...hires1f1yt9.jpg

OR, maybe they might catch a small moon out of shadow? I recall from a DPS poster that there are some quasi-stable phase space, searched telescopically without success but with a high background level of course. You'd think "why not wait for orbit?", except that the illumination is different and most importantly because there are no guarantees orbit will be achieved. Get as much from the flybys as possible, no predicting the future.

Re satellites, I'm especially intrigued about an elongated oval feature evident in the radar images below Caloris, so well placed for this flyby (unfortunately in the Doppler ambiguous region so not included in Phil's MESSENGER radar base map). It is inclined only a bit from the equator. Perhaps a spun-down Phobos-like oblique impact? A long shot, but we'll see soon enough, hopefully.