Mercury fly-by a success.

Thanks to your eyes out there, I am reminded that we had a most news
worthy event taking place at planet Mercury.
MESSENGER made a successful fly-by.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html
As NASA�s MESSENGER neared Mercury on January 14, 2008, the spacecraft
took this image of the planet�s full crescent. The image shows portions
of Mercury previously seen by Mariner 10, but when Mariner 10 flew by
the planet at each of its encounters, the sun was nearly overhead. For
this MESSENGER flyby, in contrast, the sun is shining obliquely on
regions near the day/night boundary (called the terminator) on the
right-hand side of the crescent, revealing the surface topography. This
image illustrates how MESSENGER, during its future flybys and subsequent
orbital mission, will teach scientists much about the portion of Mercury
already imaged by Mariner 10. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
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MESSENGER images of Mercury
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/index.html

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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Did you catch this about the Mercury fly-by?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=508772&in_page_id=1965


Bob MacBird
Conroe, Texas

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http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205801036
Merury fly-b a success
R. Colin Johnson
EE Times

(01/16/2008 11:49 AM EST)
PORTLAND, Ore. � The U.S. Messenger spacecraft has flown its first
successful fly-by of the planet Mercury.
Messenger, which stands for Mercury Surface Space-Environment
Geochemistry and Ranging, will perform the most detailed survey of the
closest planet to the Sun. Already having flown by Venus, which is
between Earth and Mercury, the spacecraft is now training its
instruments on the final destination--orbit around Mercury in 2011, just
in time to observing the effects of the peak sunspot season.

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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/
MESSENGER
MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging

January 18, 2008
*MESSENGER�s Mercury Flyby Science Data Now Safely on Earth*

A day after its successful flyby of Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft
turned toward Earth on Tuesday and began downloading the 500 megabytes
of data that had been stored on the solid-state recorder during the
encounter. All of those data, including 1,213 images from the Mercury
Dual Imaging System (MDIS) cameras, have now been received by the
Science Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. [more]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_10

Mariner 10 was a robotic space probe launched on November 3, 1973 to fly
by the planets Mercury and Venus. It was launched approximately 2 years
after Mariner 9 and was the last spacecraft in the Mariner program
(Mariner 11 and 12 were redesignated Voyager 1 and Voyager 2). The
mission objectives were to measure Mercury's environment, atmosphere,
surface, and body characteristics and to make similar investigations of
Venus. Secondary objectives were to perform experiments in the
interplanetary medium and to obtain experience with a dual-planet
gravity-assist mission.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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