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All Articles Tagged As: mercury
The MESSENGER spacecraft has shown scientists that Mercury doesn't conform to theory. Its surface material composition differs from both those of the other terrestrial planets and expectations prior to the MESSENGER mission, calling into question current theories for Mercury's formation. Its magnetic field is unlike any other in the solar system, and there are huge expanses of volcanic plains surrounding the north polar region of the planet and cover more than 6 percent of Mercury's surface.
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 | Planetary scientists at Brown University and participating institutions have discovered vast, smooth plains around Mercury's north pole that were created by volcanic activity more than 3.5 billion years ago. The lava flows were epic: They filled craters more than a mile deep and cover 6 percent of Mercury's surface, an area that would cover nearly 60 percent of the continental United States, the scientists write in the journal Science. ...> Full Article |
In March, the Messenger spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury to become that planet's first orbiter. The tiny craft is providing a wealth of new information and some surprises. For instance, Mercury's surface composition differs from that expected for the innermost of the terrestrial planets, and Mercury's magnetic field has a north-south asymmetry that affects the interaction of the surface with charged particles from the solar wind.
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 | NASA's MESSENGER mission launched in 2004 is slated to slide into Mercury's orbit March 17 after a harrowing 4.7 billion mile journey that involved 15 loops around the sun and will bring relief and renewed excitement to the University of Colorado Boulder team that designed and a built an $8.7 million instrument on board. ...> Full Article |
 | The MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to go into orbit around Mercury on March 17. The mission is an effort to study the geologic history, magnetic field, surface composition and other mysteries of the planet. The findings are expected to broaden our understanding of rocky planets in other solar systems. ...> Full Article |
As the team of scientists behind NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft eagerly awaits the craft's entry into Mercury's orbit on March 17, we could soon get answers to questions about the origin, composition, interior structure and geological history of this mysterious planet.Louise Prockter, deputy project scientist on the mission, writes exclusively in February's Physics World about the challenges the craft has been designed to face, the early successes of the mission and her own triumphant voyage over the past decade's work.
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 | Key components of the ESA-led Mercury mapper BepiColombo have been tested in a specially upgraded European space simulator. ESA's Large Space Simulator is now the most powerful in the world and the only facility capable of reproducing Mercury's hellish environment for a full-scale spacecraft. ...> Full Article |
Scientists from Boston University's Center for Space Physics reported today that NASA satellites designed to view the escaping atmosphere of the Sun have also recorded evidence of gas escaping from the planet Mercury. The scientists reported these findings at the European Planetary Science Congress meeting in Rome, Italy, this week.
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 | Analysis of data from MESSENGER's third and final flyby of Mercury in September 2009 has revealed evidence of younger volcanism on the innermost planet than previously recognized, new information about magnetic substorms, and the first observations of emission from an ionized species in Mercury's very thin atmosphere or exosphere. ...> Full Article |
 | NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which is toting an $8.7 million University of Colorado at Boulder instrument, will make its third and final flyby of Mercury on Sept. 29 -- a clever gravity-assist maneuver that will steer it into orbit around the rocky planet beginning in March 2011.
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 | Mercury is scorching hot, with daytime temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Its hard for the planet to hold on to its atmosphere, which is extremely thin, and invisible to the human eye. However, it can be seen by special instruments attached to telescopes and spacecraft like MESSENGER. ...> Full Article |
 | Using high-resolution and multispectral images, researchers have started the difficult process of determining the composition of Mercury's crust and chronicling its origin and evolution. ...> Full Article |
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft served up another curveball to a University of Colorado at Boulder team after a second flyby of the hot inner planet Oct. 6 detected magnesium -- an element created inside exploding stars and which is found in many medicine cabinets on Earth -- clumped in the tenuous atmosphere of the planet.
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 | A previously unknown, large impact basin has been discovered by the MESSENGER spacecraft during its second flyby of Mercury in October 2008. The impact basin, now named Rembrandt, more than 700 kilometers (430 miles) in diameter. If the Rembrandt basin had formed on the east coast of the United States, it would span the distance between Washington, D.C., and Boston. ...> Full Article |
 | The Pantheon Fossae, a radiating web of troughs located in the giant Caloris Basin of Mercury, is directly linked to an impact crater at the centre of the web. ...> Full Article |
 | Volcanism has played a more extensive role in shaping the surface of Mercury than scientists had thought. This result comes from multispectral imaging data gathered in January 2008 by MESSENGER, the latest spacecraft to visit the sun's innermost planet. ...> Full Article |
 | New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground. ...> Full Article |
 | Simulation reveals possible cause of Mercury's distinctive features ...> Full Article |
The planet Mercury's magnetic field appears to be strong enough to fend off the harsh solar wind from most of its surface, according to data gathered in part by a University of Michigan instrument onboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft.
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 | One week ago, the MESSENGER spacecraft transmitted to Earth the first high-resolution image of Mercury by a spacecraft in over 30 years, since the three Mercury flybys of Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975. MESSENGER's Wide Angle Camera (WAC), part of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), is equipped with 11 narrow-band color filters, in contrast to the two visible-light filters and one ultraviolet filter that were on Mariner 10's vidicon camera. ...> Full Article |
 | The European Space Agency (ESA) signalled the start of a busy period for the planet Mercury, when it signed the contract for industrial development to start for the BepiColombo mission today (18th January 2008) at Astrium in Friedrichshafen, Germany. UK scientists and industry have key roles in BepiColombo, including construction of spacecraft subsystems and science instrument design. ...> Full Article |
 | When Mariner 10 flew past Mercury three times in 1974 and 1975, the same hemisphere was in sunlight during each encounter. As a consequence, Mariner 10 was able to image less than half the planet. Planetary scientists have wondered for more than 30 years about what spacecraft images might reveal about the hemisphere of Mercury that Mariner 10 never viewed. ...> Full Article |
 | NASA will point a power-packed $8.7 million University of Colorado at Boulder space instrument at some of the last unexplored terrain in the inner solar system when the MESSENGER spacecraft whips within 125 miles of Mercury's surface Jan. 14 at a mind-boggling 141,000 miles per hour. ...> Full Article |
 | MESSENGER's mid-December trajectory correction maneuver (TCM-19) went so well that the mission's design and navigation teams have decided that a TCM scheduled for January 10 will not be needed. ...> Full Article |
NASA has selected Case Western Reserve University geophysicist Steven A. Hauck II as one of 23 "participating scientists" to join a team collecting and analyzing data from the MESSENGER mission to Mercury. MESSENGER, an autonomous spacecraft, is expected to reach the innermost planet in January.
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The annual Geminid meteor shower will peak on the night of Dec. 13-14. The Geminids usually offer the best show of the year, outperforming even the better-known Perseid meteor shower of August. But watching the Perseids is a pleasant way to spend a warm summer evening, while waiting outdoors on a winter night for Geminids is a bit like sitting in a refrigerator and trying to think about global warming. It can be hard to concentrate.
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