* Astronomy

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RE: MESSENGER

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About 58 minutes before MESSENGERs closest approach to Mercury, the NAC captured this close-up image of a portion of Mercurys surface imaged by spacecraft for the first time. It is one of 44 in a high-resolution NAC mosaic taken of the approaching crescent-shaped Mercury, as seen at lower resolution in the optical navigation images and the approach WAC colour image set.

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Yesterday, at 4:40 am EDT, MESSENGER successfully completed its second flyby of Mercury. Today, at about 1:50 am EDT, the images taken during the flyby encounter began to be received back on Earth. The spectacular image shown here is one of the first to be returned and shows a WAC image of the departing planet taken about 90 minutes after the spacecrafts closest approach to Mercury.

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Credit NASA

Mercury as Never Seen Before

The bright crater just south of the center of the image is Kuiper, identified on images from the Mariner 10 mission in the 1970s. For most of the terrain east of Kuiper, toward the edge of the planet, the departing images are the first spacecraft views of that portion of Mercurys surface. A striking characteristic of this newly imaged area is the large pattern of rays that extend from the northern region of Mercury to regions south of Kuiper.

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Scientists early this morning eagerly awaited images from NASA's Messenger spacecraft, the first beamed back after Monday's second successful flyby of Mercury.
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"Everything went really well" - Eric Finnegan, mission systems specialist for the Messenger project at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

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The NASA ship is more than halfway through a five-billion-mile journey that should take it around the sun 15 times and put it into the Mercury's orbit in March 2011.

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MESSENGER Flyby of Mercury
At a little after 4:40 a.m. EDT, MESSENGER skimmed 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface of Mercury in the second of three flybys of the planet. Initial indications from the radio signals indicate that the spacecraft continues to operate nominally. The spacecraft is now collecting images and other scientific measurements from the planet as it departs Mercury from the illuminated side, filling in the details of much of Mercurys surface not previously viewed by spacecraft.

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A NASA probe made its second Mercury flyby early Monday as closes in on the closest planet to the sun.
The MESSENGER spacecraft was due to pick up a gravitational boost during the rendezvous today at 4:45 a.m. EDT (0845 GMT) that will help it settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011. But scientists also directed MESSENGER's cameras and sensors to capture new images and data from areas of the planet that remained uncharted after its first flyby on Jan. 14.

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A NASA spacecraft will conduct the second of three flybys of Mercury on Oct. 6 to photograph most of its remaining unseen surface and collect science data.
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, spacecraft will pass 125 miles above the planet's cratered surface, taking more than 1200 pictures. The flyby also will provide a critical gravity assist needed for the probe to become, in March 2011, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

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MESSENGER and Mercury - Soon to Meet Again!

Credit NASA

MESSENGER and Mercury - Soon to Meet Again!

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Imaging Plans for MESSENGERs Second Mercury Flyby

Credit NASA

Imaging Plans for MESSENGERs Second Mercury Flyby

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NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which is toting an $8.7 million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument to measure Mercury's wispy atmosphere and blistering surface, will make its second flyby of the mysterious, rocky planet Oct. 6.
Travelling at a mind-blowing 4.2 miles per second, the spacecraft will dip within 124 miles of Mercury and image much of the surface never before seen by spacecraft. As MESSENGER pulls away from the planet it will view a region seen at high resolution only once before -- when NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft made three flybys in 1974 and 1975, said Senior Research Associate William McClintock, a mission co-investigator from CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

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