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TOPIC: Mercury
Blobrana


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RE: Mercury
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A new high-resolution global map of Mercury has been made publicly available.
The global mosaic covers 97.7% of Mercury's surface at a resolution of 500 meters/pixel and was created from images from the MESSENGER spaceprobe's three Mercury flybys and from the Mariner 10 mission in 1974-75.

mercurymap1b.jpg
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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/U. S. Geological Survey/Arizona State University

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Blobrana


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Mercury is even more of an "iron planet" than scientists had previously supposed.
Richer concentrations of iron and titanium have been seen on Mercury's surface by Nasa's Messenger probe.
Previous Earth and spacecraft-based observations had detected only very low amounts of iron in the silicate minerals covering the innermost world.

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Blobrana


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Researcher Brett Denevi explains that this enhanced colour shot shows a bright area surrounding an irregular depression, with steep sides and an odd shape.

"...all of which are hallmarks of something like a volcanic vent"- Brett Denevi.

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Blobrana


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This enhanced-colour view of a 290 kilometre wide double ring impact crater was acquired by the  Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) aboard the MESSENGER spaceprobe on the 29th September, 2009.

mervocanic3b.jpg
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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

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Blobrana


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mer101009b1.jpg
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mer101009b2.jpg
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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

This images were captured on the 10th October, 2009, by the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) and Wide Angle Camera (WAC) aboard the Messenger spaceprobe, when it was 2,900,000 kilometres away from Mercury.

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Blobrana


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Mercury's geochronology
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Title: Mercury's geochronology revised by applying Model Production Functions to Mariner 10 data: geological implications
Authors: M. Massironi (1), G. Cremonese (2), S. Marchi (1), M. Martellato (3), M. Mottola (4), R.J. Wagner (4) ((1) Padova University; (2) INAF-Padova; (3) CISAS-Padova; (4) DLR-Berlin)

Model Production Function chronology uses dynamic models of the Main Belt Asteroids (MBAs) and Near Earth Objects (NEOs) to derive the impactor flux to a target body. This is converted into the crater size-frequency-distribution for a specific planetary surface, and calibrated using the radiometric ages of different regions of the Moon's surface. This new approach has been applied to the crater counts on Mariner 10 images of the highlands and of several large impact basins on Mercury. MPF estimates for the plains show younger ages than those of previous chronologies. Assuming a variable uppermost layering of the Hermean crust, the age of the Caloris interior plains may be as young as 3.59 Ga, in agreement with MESSENGER results that imply that long-term volcanism overcame contractional tectonics. The MPF chronology also suggests a variable projectile flux through time, coherent with the MBAs for ancient periods and then gradually comparable also to the NEOs.

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Blobrana


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Mercury Map
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This mosaic is in orthographic map projection with a resolution of 0.6 kilometers (0.37 miles) per pixel.  It is centered around 2 degrees South latitude, 322 degrees East longitude.  The mosaic covers the eastern portions of the terrain covered by Mariner 10 in the 1970s as well as some terrain that wasn't revealed until the MESSENGER encounter on October 6, 2008.  This terrain includes two ray craters at upper right and lower right that had previously only been seen in low-resolution RADAR data from Earth.  The prominent ray crater just below and left of the center of the mosaic is Kuiper, previously observed by Mariner 10.

mermosi.jpg

Click Here to download the full resolution version of a Mercury mosaic (20mb PNG image file).

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Blobrana


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RE: Mercury
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Recorded observations of Mercury date back to at least the first millennium BC. Before the 4th century BC, Greek astronomers believed the planet to be two separate objects: one visible only at sunrise, which they called Apollo; the other visible only at sunset, which they called Hermes. The English name for the planet comes from the Romans, who named it after the Roman god Mercury, which they equated with the Greek Hermes. The astronomical symbol for Mercury is a stylised version of Hermes' caduceus.
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Blobrana


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MerMap5b.jpg
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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

This image is a global map of the surface of the planet Mercury.
The map shows the combined views of the MESSENGER spaceprobe's three flybys with images obtained from the Mariner 10 spaceprobe's three flybys in 1974-75.

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Blobrana


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Yesterday, the MESSENGER spacecraft sailed past Mercury at an altitude of just 228 kilometres and a relative speed of 5.4 kilometres per second.  The close encounter provided MESSENGER with the "gravity assist" needed to slow the spacecraft enough that the next time it encounters Mercury, on March 8, 2011, it will be able to enter orbit.  MESSENGER also gathered high-resolution images of half of the remaining 10 percent of the planet that had not before been photographed from spacecraft.  "We are on course to Mercury orbit insertion less than 18 months from now, so we know that we will be returning to Mercury and will be able to observe the innermost planet in exquisite detail," project scientist Sean Solomon said in a statement to the press this morning.

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