Messenger (Даёшь Меркурий!)

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MESSENGER Data from Second Full Mercury Solar Day in Orbit Released by Planetary Data System

September 11, 2012

Late last week, the Planetary Data System (PDS) released data collected during MESSENGER's seventh through twelfth month in orbit around Mercury. PDS archives and distributes all of NASA's planetary mission data. With this release, images and measurements are now available to the public for the second full Mercury solar day of MESSENGER orbital operations.

NASA requires that all of its planetary missions archive data in the PDS, an active archive that makes available well-documented, peer-reviewed data to the research community. The PDS includes eight science teams, called discipline nodes, each of which is centered at a university or research institution and specializes in a specific area of planetary data. The contributions from these nodes provide a data-rich source for scientists, researchers, and developers.

In this eighth release of MESSENGER measurements by PDS, calibrated data from all seven of the mission's science instruments, plus radio science data from the spacecraft telecommunications system, are included. The MESSENGER team has created a software tool with which the public can view data from this delivery. ACT-REACT-QuickMap provides an interactive Web interface to MESSENGER data. Developed by Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, the software allows users to examine global mosaics constructed with high-resolution images from this and previous PDS deliveries.

The tool also provides weekly updates of coverage for surface-observing instruments, as well as the status of specially targeted MDIS observations. Information is also available that can be used to locate MESSENGER data products at the PDS. QuickMap can be accessed via links on the MESSENGER websites at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ and http://www.nasa.gov/messenger . The MDIS mosaics can be downloaded from http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mosaics.html .

The data for this release are available online at http://pds.nasa.gov/subscription_service/SS-20120308.html , and all of the MESSENGER data archived at the PDS thus far are available at http://pds.nasa.gov . The team will submit three more data deliveries to PDS at six-month intervals from MESSENGER's primary orbital mission and its extended mission.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=228

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MESSENGER's X-Ray Spectrometer Reveals Chemical Diversity on Mercury's Surface

September 21, 2012

New data from the X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) on the MESSENGER spacecraft -- one of two instruments designed to measure the abundances of many key elements on Mercury -- show variations in the composition of surface material on Mercury that point to changes over time in the characteristics of volcanic eruptions on the solar system's innermost planet.

In results to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, scientists report that Mercury's volcanic smooth plains units differ in composition from older surrounding terrains. The older terrain has higher ratios of magnesium to silicon, sulfur to silicon, and calcium to silicon, but lower ratios of aluminum to silicon, suggesting that the smooth plains material erupted from a magma source that was chemically different from the source of the material in the older regions, explains Shoshana Weider of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the lead author on the paper.

"The new findings further illuminate the geological history of the planet," she says. "We now know that these areas are compositionally distinct, indicating that different parts of Mercury's mantle melted at different times and temperatures, and through volcanic activity created the materials in the different terrains."

Weider and her co-authors also report that Mercury's surface is dominated by minerals high in magnesium and enriched in sulfur.

"None of the other terrestrial planets have such high levels of sulfur. We are seeing about ten times the amount of sulfur than on Earth and Mars," Weider says. "In terms of magnesium, we do have some materials on Earth that are high in magnesium. They tend to be ancient volcanic rocks that formed from very hot lavas. So this composition on Mercury tells us that eruptions of high-temperature lavas might have formed these high-magnesium materials."

These findings stem from the team's analysis of 205 X-ray measurements of Mercury's surface, focusing on the large expanse of smooth volcanic plains at high northern latitudes and surrounding areas that are higher in crater density and therefore older than the northern plains. Weider says the measurements support what other MESSENGER scientists have observed from the mission's images. "Now we can correlate their findings with our data, providing increased confidence in what we are discovering about the planet," she says.

MESSENGER has been orbiting Mercury since March 2011, and has been revealing new information about the surface chemistry and geological history of the innermost planet in the solar system. The XRS measures elemental abundances on the surface of Mercury by detecting fluorescent X-ray emissions induced on the planet's surface by the incident solar X-ray flux. The instrument began orbital observations on March 23, 2011, and has observed X-ray fluorescence from the surface of the planet whenever a sunlit portion of Mercury has been within the XRS field of view.

"The X-ray spectrometer focuses on the estimation of elemental abundances on Mercury; i.e., the amount of magnesium, aluminum, sulfur, calcium, and iron in surface material," Weider says. "From there we can start to work out what kinds of minerals are present, then the types of rocks that were formed, and then we can start to unravel the geological history."

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=229

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Happy Little Crater
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=997

Зонд "Мессенджер" увидел смайлик на Меркурии

МОСКВА, 9 ноя — РИА Новости. Специалисты НАСА обнаружили смайлик на одном из снимков поверхности Меркурия, сделанных зондом "Мессенджер" (MESSENGER).
Улыбающаяся рожица была обнаружена в южном полушарии планеты, на дне 37-километрового кратера. Центральная горка в его центре оказалась вытянутой, напоминая улыбающийся рот, а две возвышенности по соседству сыграли роль "глаз". Снимок был сделан камерой высокого разрешения NAC на борту "Мессенджера" 4 октября.
На космических снимках ранее уже обнаруживали смайлики, героев мультфильмов и компьютерных игр.
Так, в июне этого года тот же "Мессенджер" обнаружил у южного полюса планеты три кратера, образующих силуэт одного из героев классических диснеевских мультфильмов — Микки Мауса.
В марте 2010 года на инфракрасных снимках спутника Сатурна Мимаса, сделанных с борта аппарата "Кассини", ученые увидели персонажа культовой видео- и компьютерной игры 1980-х годов, Пакмэна (Pac-Man), пожирающего точку, роль которой сыграл кратер на поверхности небесного тела.
А за месяц до этого участники проекта WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) — зонда, запущенного в 2001 году для изучения реликтового излучения, обнаружили на полученной карте буквы S и H — инициалы британского физика Стивена Хокинга.
Все эти находки связаны с так называемой парейдолией — склонностью человека видеть знакомые образы в нагромождении случайных деталей.
В октябре британец Нил Эшер (Neil Usher) представил на выставке Design Interactions 2012 первого робота-"парейдолика" запрограммированного на поиск образов в облаках. Пока ему удалось "поймать" только лицо некоего бородатого мужчины. Некоторые считают, что это лицо Чарльза Дарвина.

http://ria.ru/science/20121109/910184566.html

[Dude]

Выложили "глобальную карту" Меркурия 250м/пикс
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mosaics.html

Global Mosaic
 

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• Download 2.5 km/pixel png file (20 MB)
  
• Download 1 km/pixel png file (122 MB)
  
• Download 250 m/pixel png file (828 MB) (NOTE: Large file. If you have difficulty opening this file, right click for options and save to your computer.)
  
• Download 250 m/pixel geotiff file (10 GB) (NOTE: Large file. If you have difficulty opening this file, right click for options and save to your computer.)
  

Интерактивная веб-версия
http://messenger-act.actgate.com/msgr_public_released/react_quickmap.html

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NASA Hosts Nov. 29 News Conference About Mercury Polar Regions

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov, 29, to reveal new observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW in Washington.
 
 Science Journal has embargoed details until 2 p.m. on Nov. 29. The news conference will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
 
 NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER spacecraft has been studying Mercury in unprecedented detail since its historic arrival there in March 2011.
 
 The news conference participants are:
 
 -     Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
 -     Sean Solomon, MESSENGER Principal Investigator, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.
 -     David Lawrence, MESSENGER Participating Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
 -     Gregory Neumann, Mercury Laser Altimeter Instrument Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
 -     David Paige, MESSENGER Participating Scientist, University of California, Los Angeles
 
 Journalists may attend the briefing in-person, ask questions from participating NASA locations and join by phone or via Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.
 
 For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/nov/HQ_M12-219_MESSENGER_Nov-29_News_Conference.html

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instml пишет:
 NASA Hosts Nov. 29 News Conference About Mercury Polar Regions

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Nov, 29, to reveal new observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW in Washington.
 
 Science Journal has embargoed details until 2 p.m. on Nov. 29. The news conference will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
 
 NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER spacecraft has been studying Mercury in unprecedented detail since its historic arrival there in March 2011.
 
 For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

 http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/nov/HQ_M12-219_MESSENGER_Nov-29_News_Conference.html
 

Скоро

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Смотрим:
 
 http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html
 http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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[SIZE=10]MESSENGER Finds New Evidence for Water Ice at Mercury's Poles
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New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters.
 
 Three independent lines of evidence support this conclusion: the first measurements of excess hydrogen at Mercury's north pole with MESSENGER's Neutron Spectrometer, the first measurements of the reflectance of Mercury's polar deposits at near-infrared wavelengths with the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA), and the first detailed models of the surface and near-surface temperatures of Mercury's north polar regions that utilize the actual topography of Mercury's surface measured by MLA. These findings are presented in three papers published online today in Science Express.
 
 Given its proximity to the Sun, Mercury would seem to be an unlikely place to find ice. But the tilt of Mercury's rotational axis is almost zero -- less than one degree -- so there are pockets at the planet's poles that never see sunlight. Scientists suggested decades ago that there might be water ice and other frozen volatiles trapped at Mercury's poles.
 
 The idea received a boost in 1991, when the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico detected unusually radar-bright patches at Mercury's poles, spots that reflected radio waves in the way one would expect if there were water ice. Many of these patches corresponded to the location of large impact craters mapped by the Mariner 10 spacecraft in the 1970s. But because Mariner saw less than 50 percent of the planet, planetary scientists lacked a complete diagram of the poles to compare with the images.
 
 MESSENGER's arrival at Mercury last year changed that. Images fr om the spacecraft's Mercury Dual Imaging System taken in 2011 and earlier this year confirmed that radar-bright features at Mercury's north and south poles are within shadowed regions on Mercury's surface, findings that are consistent with the water-ice hypothesis.
 
 Now the newest data from MESSENGER strongly indicate that water ice is the major constituent of Mercury's north polar deposits, that ice is exposed at the surface in the coldest of those deposits, but that the ice is buried beneath an unusually dark material across most of the deposits, areas wh ere temperatures are a bit too warm for ice to be stable at the surface itself.
 
 MESSENGER uses neutron spectroscopy to measure average hydrogen concentrations within Mercury's radar-bright regions. Water ice concentrations are derived from the hydrogen measurements. "The neutron data indicate that Mercury's radar-bright polar deposits contain, on average, a hydrogen-rich layer more than tens of centimeters thick beneath a surficial layer 10 to 20 centimeters thick that is less rich in hydrogen," writes David Lawrence, a MESSENGER Participating Scientist based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the lead author of one of the papers. "The buried layer has a hydrogen content consistent with nearly pure water ice."
 
 Data from MESSENGER's Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) -- which has fired more than 10 million laser pulses at Mercury to make detailed maps of the planet's topography -- corroborate the radar results and Neutron Spectrometer measurements of Mercury's polar region, writes Gregory Neumann of the NASA Goddard Flight Center. In a second paper, Neumann and his colleagues report that the first MLA measurements of the shadowed north polar regions reveal irregular dark and bright deposits at near-infrared wavelength near Mercury's north pole.
 
 "These reflectance anomalies are concentrated on poleward-facing slopes and are spatially collocated with areas of high radar backscatter postulated to be the result of near-surface water ice," Neumann writes. "Correlation of observed reflectance with modeled temperatures indicates that the optically bright regions are consistent with surface water ice."
 
 The MLA also recorded dark patches with diminished reflectance, consistent with the theory that the ice in those areas is covered by a thermally insulating layer. Neumann suggests that impacts of comets or volatile-rich asteroids could have provided both the dark and bright deposits, a finding corroborated in a third paper led by David Paige of the University of California, Los Angeles.
 
 Paige and his colleagues provided the first detailed models of the surface and near-surface temperatures of Mercury's north polar regions that utilize the actual topography of Mercury's surface measured by MLA. The measurements "show that the spatial distribution of regions of high radar backscatter is well matched by the predicted distribution of thermally stable water ice," he writes.
 
 According to Paige, the dark material is likely a mix of complex organic compounds delivered to Mercury by the impacts of comets and volatile-rich asteroids, the same objects that likely delivered water to the innermost planet. The organic material may have been darkened further by exposure to the harsh radiation at Mercury's surface, even in permanently shadowed areas.
 
 This dark insulating material is a new wrinkle to the story, says Sean Solomon of the Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, principal investigator of the MESSENGER mission. "For more than 20 years the jury has been deliberating on whether the planet closest to the Sun hosts abundant water ice in its permanently shadowed polar regions. MESSENGER has now supplied a unanimous affirmative verdict."
 
 "But the new observations have also raised new questions," adds Solomon. "Do the dark materials in the polar deposits consist mostly of organic compounds? What kind of chemical reactions has that material experienced? Are there any regions on or within Mercury that might have both liquid water and organic compounds? Only with the continued exploration of Mercury can we hope to make progress on these new questions."

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=233

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Зачотный галстук

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В Прокофьеве похоже много льда  

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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/view.php?gallery_id=2

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Зонд "Мессенджер" обнаружил лед в полярных кратерах на Меркурии

МОСКВА, 29 ноя — РИА Новости. Инструменты американского зонда "Мессенджер" подтвердили существование открытых участков льда на дне глубоких кратеров на северном полюсе Меркурия, заявляют ученые в трех статьях, опубликованных в журнале Science.
Считается, что глубокие кратеры на полюсах Меркурия могут содержать в себе небольшие залежи водяного льда. В пользу такого предположения говорит то, что зонд LRO смог обнаружить лед в приполярных районах Луны. Одной из целей зонда "Мессенджер", отправленного к первой планете Солнечной системы в 2004 году, стала проверка этой гипотезы.
Три группы астрономов под руководством Грегори Нойманна (Gregory Neumann) из Центра космических полетов имени Годдарда (США), Дэйвида Лоуренса (David Lawrence) из университета Джона Гопкинса в Лореле (США) и Дэйвида Пейджа (David Paige) из университета штата Калифорния в Лос-Анджелесе (США) доказали истинность этой гипотезы на практике, изучив данные, собранные "Мессенджером" за время его работы на орбите.
Зонд-ледоискатель
Нойманн и его коллеги проанализировали альбедо — отражательную способность — кратеров на северном полюсе Меркурия при помощи лазерного альтиметра MLA на борту меркурианского зонда.
Как объясняют ученые, все "космические" минералы, в том числе и водяной лед, обладают уникальным альбедо. Это позволяет оценить примерный химический состав поверхности небесных тел, и выяснить, присутствует ли вода на их поверхности. Ученые воспользовались прибором MLA для вычисления отражательной способности более чем 2 миллионов точек поверхности в приполярных регионах возле северного полюса Меркурия.
Эти данные были использованы для составления карты альбедо, несколько необычно светлых участков на которой сразу привлекли внимание планетологов. Большая часть из них находилась в двух "русских" кратерах — Кандинского и Прокофьева. По словам исследователей, их альбедо очень похоже на отражательную способность толстой корки изо льда, скрытой под тонким слоем пыли или органики.
Существование льда в этой части Меркурия возможно с точки зрения теории — в эти кратеры достаточно редко заглядывает Солнце, что позволит льду "выживать" на планете, столь близко расположенной к светилу. Исследователи полагают, что пылевая оболочка вокруг льда играет роль своеобразного "термоса", который не дает льду прогреться и растаять.
Художник и композитор
Группа астрономов под руководством Лоуренса подтвердила выводы своих товарищей, изучив данные, полученные нейтронным спектрометром "Мессенджера". Лоуренс и его коллеги "просветили" кратеры Кандинского и Прокофьева при помощи этого инструмента и выяснили, что дно каждого из них состоит из двух слоев.
На поверхности кратеров находится тонкая корочка, глубиной в 15-20 сантиметров, составленная из смеси меркурианского грунта и сложных органических молекул. Доля воды в них достаточно низкая — не выше 25%. Второй слой, толщина которого превышает проникающую способность спектрометра, практически полностью состоит из воды.
По расчетам исследователей, кратеры Меркурия могут содержать в себе от 20 миллиардов до 2 триллионов тонн воды. Как считают ученые, подобный объем льда мог быть доставлен на Меркурий кометами и метеоритами в ранних эпохах жизни Солнечной системы.
В свою очередь, Пейдж и его коллеги подтвердили выводы первых двух научных коллективов, измерив температуру в приполярных регионах Меркурия.
По их расчетам, среднегодовая температура в некоторых частях северного полюса Меркурия, в том числе в кратерах Кандинского и Прокофьева, составляет около 100 градусов Кельвина (-173 градуса Цельсия). Этого более чем достаточно для практически бесконечного существования как залежей льда, погребенных под десятисантиметровым слоем пыли.
Таким образом, ученым удалось доказать, что на Меркурии существуют обширные залежи воды, скрытие под относительно тонкой коркой из пыли. Данные, полученные авторами этого открытия, помогут астрономам лучше находить запасы воды и на других безвоздушных небесных телах. Ближайшей целью для таких исследований может служить астероид Церера, с которым сблизится зонд Dawn в феврале 2015 года.

http://ria.ru/science/20121129/912843739.html

[sol]

Фух! Ну всё! Можно спокойно стромть базу на Меркурии.
1. Нежаркое место!
2. Затененные участки относительно защищают от радиации+ если зарыться в лед, то вообще даже от нейтронов защита.
3. Собствено есть чего попить. А если на наружном склоне кратера расстелить пленочные поля солнечных батарей - то и электричества валом - разлагай себе воду на водород (для примуса и прочего) и кислород (на подышать) - а в паре - топливо для ракет!
4. Аффигительно интересное место для солнечной обсерватории - боянная тема.

Осталось только разработать и (!) внедрить средства доставки. Видимо, без ЯРД никак.

[Dude]

Насчет "сложных органических молекул" это в РИА загнули, на пресс-конференции ничего такого не было. Речь шла про наличие пятен чего-то темного, как углеродные материалы(графит, черный уголь), и чередующегося с яркими пятнами и равномерной основой под всем этим поглощающей нейтроны (что похоже на лёд). Что очень похоже на сохранившийся в полярных кратерах кометный материал.

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MESSENGER's Discoveries Tapped as among Top Space Stories of 2012

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=235

[Vasily]

sol пишет:
3. Собствено есть чего попить. А если на наружном склоне кратера расстелить пленочные поля солнечных батарей - то и электричества валом - разлагай себе воду на водород (для примуса и прочего) и кислород (на подышать) - а в паре - топливо для ракет!

Угу... разморозят лёд, а оттуда выползет нечто в не очень хорошем настроении и...

Dude пишет:
Речь шла про наличие пятен чего-то темного, как углеродные материалы

вот-вот: какие-то вкрапления чего-то тёмного...

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Первый метеорит с Меркурия?

 
The First-Ever Meteorite fr om Mercury?
 
NWA 7325 is a meteorite like no other. Found in Morocco last year, this clutch of small stones looks to be a near-perfect geochemical match to the surface of the innermost planet.

When dynamicists run the numbers, it's at least statistically possible that meteorites should fall to Earth from all over the inner solar system — even from Mercury.

Spurred by the Messenger orbiter's close scrutiny of Mercury's surface, the hunt has been on to find meteorites from the innermost planet. All previous candidates (called angrites and aubrites) are close but imperfect matches to the unique composition found by Messenger on Mercury's surface: dark igneous rock enriched in magnesium but virtually free of iron.

Now, finally, they might have one in hand.



Last April, German meteorite dealer Stefan Ralew bought a clutch of 35 small meteorites that had been found a few months earlier in the Moroccan desert. The fragments from a single fall totaled about 12 ounces (354 g). Right away he could see that they were unusual: Their fusion crust, created by flash heating while decelerating in Earth's atmosphere, was greenish. This was especially evident in the largest, golfball-size piece, weighing just over 100 g. "Green and glassy fusion crusts are known from a few lunar meteorites," Ralew explains, "but they all don´t have an extreme color as this one."

The new Moroccan find is now officially known as Northwest Africa 7325. Ralew sent samples to the laboratory of Anthony Irving (University of Washington), well known for his expertise with unusual meteorites from the Moon, Mars, and elsewh ere.

The stones' interiors are full of relatively large and obvious crystals, suggesting that the magma from which they solidified had cooled slowly. The stunning emerald-green color comes from a silicate mineral called diopside that's infused with chromium. Irving and his team found lots of magnesium and calcium in the suite of silicate minerals, but even more important is what they didn't find: there's virtually no iron.

Irving, who'll present his team's findings at a planetary-science conference next month, is trying to keep his enthusiasm in check. "NWA 7325 is tantalizing, and certainly more consistent with the Messenger results than either angrites or aubrites," he explains, "but we need a [spacecraft-returned sample] for 'ground truth'."

Shoshana Weider (Carnegie Institution of Washington), who's spent years studying Messenger's spectra of Mercury, likewise offers a cautionary note. The planet's surface seems to be rich in the silicate mineral enstatite, which is not obvious in NWA 7325. Also, there shouldn't be so much calcium. To explain these discrepancies, she and Irving agree that meteorite might have been a deeply buried rock — well below the surface — before a powerful collision sent it flying off into interplanetary space.

There are still many unknowns about these weirdly green space rocks. Tests are under way to determine how long ago they crystallized and how long they were exposed to cosmic rays as they drifted in space before reaching Earth.



One way to zero in on planetary paternity would be to see if NWA 7325 exhibits remanent magnetism. After all, Mercury has a robust magnetic field that would have been imprinted on any rock as it crystallized. (That said, possible complications might arise from the shock-heating these rocks experienced as they were being ejected into space, or from the strong magnets that Moroccan nomads use when searching for meteorites in the desert.)

A second approach would be to see if the meteorite's ratios of three magnesium isotopes match what Messenger's gamma-ray spectrometer is seeing on Mercury. It's a challenging observation, explains Patrick Peplowski (Applied Physics Laboratory), because the GRS has a magnesium housing. "There does exist the potential to detect different magnesium isotopes, but I expect that the errors on any resulting isotopic ratios would be at the ~5% level," Peplowski says. "I suspect that this is larger than would be needed to compare to NWA 7325, but I'm not sure."

Finally, researchers could melt one of the NWA 7325 stones and then let it cool and recrystallize under controlled conditions, to see how closely the result mimics Mercury's surface composition. "A lot of scientists will want to get their hands on this," Weider notes.

However, anyone wanting a piece big enough to melt down will likely have to get in line. So far Ralew has donated less than 1 ounce of NWA 7325 for scientific analysis, and he's got the rest. It's not inconceivable that bits of this unique find could fetch $5,000 per gram on the sometimes-frenzied meteorite market. For now, at least, he's holding off offering any of it for sale, to give researchers the chance to run the entire gamut of analytical tests.

"If this rock isn't from Mercury, it's still amazing," Irving notes. It's from a planet, he says — we just need to figure out which one.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/The-First-Ever-Meteorite-from-Mercury-189374981.html

[instml]

Just the Peaks
Release Date: February 7, 2013



http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/EN0264103036M.nomap.jpg

Date acquired: December 15, 2012
 Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 264103036
 Image ID: 3147414
 Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
 Center Latitude: 76.84°
 Center Longitude: 139.9° E
 Resolution: 12 meters/pixel
 Scale: This scene is 13 km (8 mi.) across
 Incidence Angle: 77.0°
 Emission Angle: 12.6°
 Phase Angle: 71.2°
 
 Of Interest: The central peaks of an unnamed 38-km crater fill this scene. The sun is coming from the left side of the frame, so that the peaks cast their shadows to the right. North is to the right in this image.
 
 This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 200-meter/pixel morphology base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution, but typically several areas of high scientific interest are imaged in this mode each week.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=1082

[Dude]

instml пишет:

 Of Interest: The central peaks of an unnamed 38-km crater fill this scene. The sun is coming from the left side of the frame, so that the peaks cast their shadows to the right. North is to the right in this image.
 

сено-солома!сено-солома!