Messenger (Даёшь Меркурий!)

[Space Alien]

Я сейчас упаду  :lol:  :lol:  :lol: :

Зонд НАСА обнаружил "Микки Мауса" у южного полюса Меркурия[/size]



Зонд НАСА "Мессенджер", с марта 2011 года исследующий Меркурий с орбиты его спутника, обнаружил у южного полюса планеты три кратера, образующих силуэт одного из героев классических диснеевских мультфильмов - Микки Мауса.
Снимок "жителя" Меркурия в пятницу был размещен на официальном сайте космической миссии. На нем хорошо различим большой кратер диаметром примерно 105 километров, который по верхнему краю "украшен" парой "ушей" - кратеров поменьше.
Фотография была сделана 3 июня с помощью узкоугольной камерой NAC в рамках кампании по съемке поверхности Меркурия при малых углах падения солнечных лучей. В условиях, когда Солнце находится очень низко к горизонту, на снимках очень хорошо заметны малейшие неровности - они отбрасывают очень длинные тени, что позволяет составить очень точные карты.
Разрешение снимка составляет 188 метров на пиксель, кратер "Микки Маус" находится к северо-западу от большого кратера Магритт, расположенного у южного полюса планеты.
Зонд "Мессенджер" (MESSENGER) был запущен американским аэрокосмическим агентством НАСА в 2004 году. Он стал первым аппаратом, который был отправлен к Меркурию после зонда "Маринер-10", пролетавшего в непосредственной близости от планеты-"вестника" 16 марта 1975 года. В марте 2011 года космический аппарат вышел на орбиту Меркурия и проанализировал его химические и физические свойства при помощи бортовых спектрометров и высокочувствительных камер, работающих в инфракрасном и видимом диапазоне.
В частности, зонд выяснил характеристики магнитного поля Меркурия (оно оказалось сдвинутым на 500 километров к северу), свойства его литосферы. "Мессенджер" также получил более 88 тысяч фотографий поверхности планеты.

http://ria.ru/science/20120615/674092800.html

[Space Alien]

This scene is to the northwest of the recently named crater Magritte, in Mercury's south. The image is not map projected; the larger crater actually sits to the north of the two smaller ones. The shadowing helps define the striking "Mickey Mouse" resemblance, created by the accumulation of craters over Mercury's long geologic history.

This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-incidence-angle base map. The high-incidence-angle base map is a major mapping activity in MESSENGER's extended mission and complements the surface morphology base map of MESSENGER's primary mission that was acquired under generally more moderate incidence angles. High incidence angles, achieved when the Sun is near the horizon, result in long shadows that accentuate the small-scale topography of geologic features. The high-incidence-angle base map is being acquired with an average resolution of 200 meters/pixel.

The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the key science questions that the MESSENGER mission is addressing. During the one-year primary mission, MESSENGER acquired 88,746 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is now in a yearlong extended mission, during which plans call for the acquisition of more than 80,000 additional images to support MESSENGER's science goals.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=876

В большом размере - http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/EN0247173011M.nomap.jpg

[fon Butterfly]

Я сейчас упаду  :lol:  :lol:  :lol: :

Зонд НАСА обнаружил "Микки Мауса" у южного полюса Меркурия[/size]

Ну почему буржуйского Микки-Мауса на Меркурии видят, а нашего посконного Чебурашку на Весте - нет?..

     

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MESSENGER Mission News
June 22, 2012

MESSENGER Completes Its 1,000th Orbit of Mercury

MESSENGER will complete its 1,000th orbit of the planet closest to the Sun at 11:22 p.m. EDT tonight. "Reaching this milestone is yet another testimony to the hard work and dedication of the full MESSENGER team that has designed, launched, and operated this highly successful spacecraft," says the mission trajectory lead Jim McAdams of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

The spacecraft was inserted into orbit around Mercury in mid-March 2011, after travelling more than 15 times around the Sun through the inner solar system and completing six planetary flybys. "Since arriving at Mercury, MESSENGER took a little more than 15 months to reach this mark," McAdams notes. "But because the orbital period has been reduced from just under 12 hours to 8 hours, it will take only 11 months to complete the next 1,000 orbits."

During its primary mission, which concluded on March 17, 2012, MESSENGER performed the first global reconnaissance of the geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment of Mercury. The spacecraft is now more than one-quarter of the way into a one-year extended mission that is building on this knowledge to address new questions raised by the initial orbital observations.

"Mercury is in a tough neighborhood, with high temperatures and increasingly frequent streams of solar energetic particles," says MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It is therefore all the more remarkable that this spacecraft has met the challenge to perform as designed after 1,000 orbits about the innermost planet in our solar system. There is much more science ahead for this mission."

Paper on MESSENGER's Magnetosphere Garners Top Student Presentation Award

University of Michigan graduate student and MESSENGER team member Gina DiBraccio received an Outstanding Student Paper Award from the American Geophysical Union's Planetary Sciences Section for her presentation, "MESSENGER observations of magnetopause structure at Mercury," delivered at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco last December. The presentation explored the mechanism by which energy and momentum are transferred from the solar wind into Mercury's magnetosphere.

"The processes at the boundary to Mercury's magnetosphere, in particular magnetic reconnection, are similar to what has been found at Earth's magnetopause, except that Mercury experiences much shorter timescales and a higher frequency of events," explains DiBraccio. "This has led us to question what causes the difference in timescales and intensity of magnetopause magnetic reconnection at various planets. We find that the changes in plasma and magnetic pressures affect solar-planetary interaction throughout the heliosphere, as do the orientation and strength of the interplanetary magnetic field that drapes around the planetary magnetopause."

DiBraccio's interest in space science dates back to the third grade, when she declared that she wanted to be an astronaut. "After noticing my decision, my parents strongly supported and encouraged me," she says. "They would leave daily news clippings regarding NASA and new discoveries, take me to the local planetarium and observatories, and bring me to special events at museums, and they even bought me a telescope."

She attended the University of Pittsburgh, earning a dual B.S. degree in physics and astronomy, as well as a B.S. in business administration. She also worked as a co-op student at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and then later at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

DiBraccio is now working on a Ph.D., and she plans to continue research with MESSENGER data. "There are many outstanding questions pertaining to planetary magnetospheres, and MESSENGER makes it possible to explore this exciting topic so we may compare our results to those at other planets with intrinsic magnetic fields," she says.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=224

[Старый]

Зонд НАСА обнаружил "Микки Мауса" у южного полюса Меркурия[/size]

Это олимпийский мишка.

[raputor]

Ну почему буржуйского Микки-Мауса на Меркурии видят, а нашего посконного Чебурашку на Весте - нет?

Частые просмотры западных "мультфильмов" нарушают ассоциативные связи.

Это олимпийский мишка.

Полностью солидарен!!!
Это массив кратеров Олимпийского Мишки (craters of Olympic Bear).

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Данные MESSENGER заставляют пересмотреть взгляды на происхождение Меркурия

На последней встрече Американского астрономического общества в Анкоридже (США) астроном Шон Соломон из Института Карнеги в Вашингтоне раскрыл ряд результатов наблюдений автоматической межпланетной станции Mercury MESSENGER, с 2011 года вращающейся вокруг ближайшей к Солнцу планеты.

Похоже, несколько традиционных теорий по поводу Меркурия придётся отвергнуть, а иные — пересмотреть.

Станция Mercury MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, «Меркурианская поверхность, космическое окружение, геохимия и измерение расстояний»), как все мы помним, в прошлом году после семилетнего путешествия начала вращаться по круговой орбите вокруг Меркурия, приступив к его интенсивному изучению. За относительно короткое время аппарат смог сильно озадачить астрономов. Его данные серьёзно противоречат существующим моделям образования близкой к Солнцу бесплодной планеты, столь богатой железом и столь бедной лёгкими элементами.

Напомним, сейчас их две. Первая: когда-то Меркурий имел нормальный состав с меньшим количество металлов и избытком лёгких элементов. Масса планеты была приблизительно в 2,25 раза больше нынешней. Затем Меркурий испытал столкновение с планетезималью, приблизительно вшестеро легче его самого и двигавшейся со скоростью до 20 км/с. Б

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The MESSENGER team is hosting a joint MESSENGER-BepiColombo Workshop entitled "The Evolution and Constitution of Mercury's Interior." The workshop will be held 30 October to 1 November, 2012, in New York City. Visit the workshop's website for meeting details and to register.

https://sites.google.com/a/case.edu/messenger-bepicolombo-workshop/

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MESSENGER Marks 8th Anniversary of Launch

The MESSENGER spacecraft launched eight years ago today — on August 3, 2004 — embarking on a six-and-a-half year journey to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. The spacecraft's 4.9-billion mile (7.9-billion kilometer) cruise to history included 15 trips around the Sun, a flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury.

The mission began capturing ground-breaking science and images from outer space almost immediately. During its gravity assist swing-by of Earth, on August 2, 2005, MESSENGER's cameras captured several hundred images of our planet. These images were sequenced into a movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth toward the inner Solar System.

On October 24, 2006, the spacecraft soared above the cloud deck of Venus for the first time, then returned less than a year later on June 5, 2007, marking the first time in flight that all seven instruments were turned on and operating collectively in science-observing mode. MESSENGER turned its wide-angle camera back to the planet and acquired a departure sequence that provided a spectacular good-bye to the cloud-shrouded planet while also acquiring valuable calibration data for the camera team.

MESSENGER made history on January 14, 2008, when it flew over a portion of Mercury that had never before been seen at close range. In this first of three flybys of the planet, the probe's cameras took 1,213 images and other sophisticated instruments made the first spacecraft measurements of the planet and its environment since Mariner 10's third and final flyby on March 16, 1975.

The mission's penultimate accomplishment — entering orbit about Mercury — was celebrated on March 17, 2011, by a crowd of hundreds gathered at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The event was covered live, and the webcast is still available online at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_orbit.html .

On March 17, 2012, MESSENGER successfully completed a year-long campaign to perform the first global reconnaissance of the geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment of the solar system's innermost planet. The following day, March 18, 2012, marked the official start of an extended mission phase designed to build upon those discoveries. This animation shows a sunward view of MESSENGER above Mercury's north polar region during the two orbit-correction maneuvers on April 16 and April 20, 2012, which shortened the orbit period from 12 to 8 hours, allowing MESSENGER an even closer look at the planet.

Less than five months into the extended mission, the team has already made substantial progress on its new objectives. Next week, the team will gather for its 27th Science Team Meeting in Salem, Massachusetts, to discuss the new findings and firm up plans for a second extended mission.

"Our small spacecraft has been a hardy traveler," says MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "Across billions of miles, during more than 1,000 orbits about the planet with the greatest extremes in surface temperature, and in the face of streams of energetic particles from an increasingly active Sun, MESSENGER has continued to surpass expectations. Mercury, too, has continued to surprise the scientific community, and the MESSENGER team looks forward to learning more about one of the nearest yet least studied worlds."

MESSENGER Engineer Helps Find Discovery Opportunities

For computer applications software engineer Lillian Nguyen, working on MESSENGER has been a vehicle for continual learning. Read more about her is critical role on the mission here.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=225

Highlighted Team Member: Lillian Nguyen

MESSENGER Engineer Helps Find Discovery Opportunities

For computer applications software engineer Lillian Nguyen, working on MESSENGER has been a vehicle for continual learning. "I've never had a dull day here," she says of her job at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "I learn something new almost every day! It's fantastic, and it's really exciting to be one of the first people to see some of the images."

While growing up in Munster, Ind., Nguyen's parents – both of whom had careers in the sciences – inspired her interest in nature and science. "When I was in high school they took me on a tour of a [Department of Energy] laboratory," she recalls. "It was amazing to see some of the research being done. It sparked my interest and led me to apply to summer internships at research laboratories."



Lillian Nguyen and 2010 summer intern, Michelle Collins.

And as she navigated the advanced math courses required to set her educational path, her father, an electrical engineer, was always on hand to assist. "He helped me through my first class in calculus, which I initially had some trouble grasping. At one point everything finally 'clicked,' and after that there was no question about what I wanted to study in college."

What kept her interested and wanting to learn more was the use of mathematics to describe nature. "What really fascinated me was that you can write equations that describe gravitational forces or fluid flows, or even something as simple as a circle," she says. She went on to earn a bachelor's in mathematics from Indiana University and a master's in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University.

In 2000, Nguyen joined APL's Space Department, where she has worked to develop algorithms and software for data analysis and for designing spacecraft autonomy systems. Her first role with the MESSENGER mission was to create files known as "SPICE kernels," which are used primarily in data analysis. "They describe the science instrument mounting alignments, fields of view, and optical parameters," she explains.



Lillian and her children (Kai, Teo and Anya) at Patapsco State Park in January 2012.

She also wrote the SPICE frames and instrument kernels for New Horizons, and she developed a telemetry visualization application with the SciBox library for the STEREO mission. "The work on STEREO was similar in that I used the same software library, but the scale on MESSENGER is much larger, because the code coordinates the activities of all of the instruments and produces hundreds of reports and other visualization tools," she says.

Recently, Nguyen joined the SciBox software development team charged with the critical task of identifying data-taking opportunities for the science instruments, scheduling them, and ensuring that they comply with spacecraft safety constraints. She also provides reports and plots that allow instrument scientists to quickly review the planned observations. "If I can acquire high-quality data given the challenging orbital geometry and spacecraft operational constraints, then my work is a success," she says.

Outside of work, Nguyen's three children are her biggest hobby. "They are my biggest joy in life, and I spend as much time with them as I can," she says. Their favorite family activities are biking, camping, hiking, and geocaching – an activity that involves using a GPS to locate hidden containers.

When she does find the occasional solitary moment, she spends it reading (most recently "Into the Wild," by Jon Krakauer). Four years ago, she joined a beginner's running group at APL and was surprised by how much she enjoyed it. "I've been running ever since, and I participate in several events each year, my most recent being the Maryland Half Marathon."

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/who_we_are/member_focus.html

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International Astronomical Union Approves Names for Nine Mercury Craters

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently approved a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to nine impact craters on Mercury. The IAU has been the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the newly designated features are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, or authors or other contributors to the humanities.

"All of the nine newly named craters are located in Mercury's north polar region, and MESSENGER team members and collaborators who are researching this area contributed the proposed names," explains Mercury Dual Imaging System Instrument Scientist Nancy Chabot, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "Mercury's north polar region is of high scientific interest because of the shadowed craters there that host radar-bright deposits that may consist of water ice. All of the nine newly named craters host such deposits."

The newly named craters are:

# Egonu, for Uzo Egonu (1931-1996), a Nigerian-born painter who at 13 was sent to England to study art, first at a private school in Norfolk and later at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. Exile, alienation, and the pain of displaced peoples were recurrent themes in his work.

# Gaud

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Прокофьев самый большой: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=936 http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/Crater_names_August2012.png

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ACE News #153 - August 16, 2012

Messenger and ACE Measurements of the Interstellar Helium Gravitational Focus Cone

As the solar system moves through the local interstellar medium (LISM) neutral helium atoms flow into the heliosphere. These atoms are gravitationally focused by the Sun, forming a neutral helium enhancement directly downwind from the direction of interstellar flow. The structure of this cone is determined by the loss rates (ionization) of neutral helium in the heliosphere and properties of the LISM gas. When ionized, these particles are embedded in the solar wind as pickup ions and can serve as a proxy for neutral interstellar gas (Top Figure).

During its cruise orbit enroute to Mercury, MESSENGER traversed the gravitational focusing cone at 0.3 AU several times. During this time, the Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) sensor on MESSENGER made the first in situ measurements of pickup He+ inside Earth's orbit. These data are compared with analogous data collected by SWICS on ACE at ~1 AU. The bottom figure shows unscaled measurements of He+ during 2007-2009 for (a) MESSENGER/FIPS and (b) ACE/SWICS. In each panel the ecliptic longitude (

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Необычный кратер

A Diamond in the Rough
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=2&gallery_id=2&image_id=926

[fon Butterfly]

Необычный кратер

А что в нём необычного? Ну, горка центральная высокая - а у окрестных нету.


(кликабельно)

[raputor]

А что в нём необычного? Ну, горка центральная высокая - а у окрестных нету.

Да. Возмжно, на том месте, где горка неровная, был раньше другой кратер. Вот, они и слились так.

[sol]

это обелиск в память о павших первопрохлдцах Меркурия

[Dude]

А что в нём необычного? Ну, горка центральная высокая - а у окрестных нету.

Да. Возмжно, на том месте, где горка неровная, был раньше другой кратер. Вот, они и слились так.

да, очень похоже, два снаряда в одну воронку.

[Vasily]

Необычный кратер

A Diamond in the Rough
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=2&gallery_id=2&image_id=926

Судя по всему булыжник пробил слой породы под которым вскрыл более светлую породу с меньшей плотностью (местность там местами просела, даже границы проседания просматриваются), может какую-нибудь пористую....

[KOPERNYK]

Необычный кратер

A Diamond in the Rough
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=2&gallery_id=2&image_id=926

Судя по всему булыжник пробил слой породы под которым вскрыл более светлую породу с меньшей плотностью (местность там местами просела, даже границы проседания просматриваются), может какую-нибудь пористую....

-




-Чушь.

-Обычная крышка люка, каких много на М. и не только. Стилизована под кратер. Но-если посмотреть внимательно, справа треугольная канавка и на внешней обечайке, и на самом люке-как ключ.
Т.о. крышка открывается вправо наружу.

-А если увеличить и обработать фото, можно видеть механизм направялющей люка, и ось поворота люка (не показано) :wink: