http://science.nasa.gov/
Beyond that though is the planet Mercury which now has a visitor in orbit.
View Mercury in the evening sky March 21.
http://www.skyandtelescope.
- LRK -
------------------------------------------
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/
March 17, 2011
snip
------------------------------
Read on.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://science.nasa.gov/
NASA Science News for March 18, 2011 NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT on March 17th. This marks the first time a spacecraft has orbited the solar system's innermost planet.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/
snip
------------------------------
So MESSENGER is in orbit.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.nasa.gov/home/
NASA'S MESSENGER SPACECRAFT BEGINS HISTORIC ORBIT AROUND MERCURY
WASHINGTON -- NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit
around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the
first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and
scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.
"This mission will continue to revolutionize our understanding of
Mercury during the coming year," said NASA Administrator Charles
Bolden, who was at MESSENGER mission control at the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., as engineers
received telemetry data confirming orbit insertion. "NASA science is
rewriting text books. MESSENGER is a great example of how our
scientists are innovating to push the envelope of human knowledge."
At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers Operations Center, received the
anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and
successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the
planet Mercury. NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment,
Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, rotated back to the Earth by
9:45 p.m. EDT, and started transmitting data. Upon review of the
data, the engineering and operations teams confirmed the burn
executed nominally with all subsystems reporting a clean burn and no
logged errors.
snip
------------------------------
So glad we hadn't been there and done that.
Might have been nice to have watched from the Moon though.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_
MESSENGER
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.
snip
------------------------------
Lets hope that Japan will still be able to continue with their planned BepiColomb project forMercury as well.
http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/
==============================
March 17, 2011
MESSENGER Begins Historic Orbit around Mercury
At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers in the MESSENGER Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., received the anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the planet Mercury. [more]
snip
------------------------------
Read on.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://science.nasa.gov/
NASA Science News for March 18, 2011 NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT on March 17th. This marks the first time a spacecraft has orbited the solar system's innermost planet.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/
snip
------------------------------
So MESSENGER is in orbit.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.nasa.gov/home/
NASA'S MESSENGER SPACECRAFT BEGINS HISTORIC ORBIT AROUND MERCURY
WASHINGTON -- NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit
around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the
first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and
scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.
"This mission will continue to revolutionize our understanding of
Mercury during the coming year," said NASA Administrator Charles
Bolden, who was at MESSENGER mission control at the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., as engineers
received telemetry data confirming orbit insertion. "NASA science is
rewriting text books. MESSENGER is a great example of how our
scientists are innovating to push the envelope of human knowledge."
At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers Operations Center, received the
anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and
successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the
planet Mercury. NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment,
Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, rotated back to the Earth by
9:45 p.m. EDT, and started transmitting data. Upon review of the
data, the engineering and operations teams confirmed the burn
executed nominally with all subsystems reporting a clean burn and no
logged errors.
snip
------------------------------
So glad we hadn't been there and done that.
Might have been nice to have watched from the Moon though.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_
MESSENGER
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.
snip
------------------------------
Lets hope that Japan will still be able to continue with their planned BepiColomb project forMercury as well.
http://www.jaxa.jp/projects/
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/
==============================
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System,[a] orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits. The perihelion of Mercury's orbit precesses around the Sun at an excess of 43 arcseconds per century; a phenomenon that was explained in the 20th century by Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.[11] Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, ranging from −2.3 to 5.7 in apparent magnitude, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun is only 28.3°. Since Mercury is normally lost in the glare of the Sun, unless there is a solar eclipse it can be viewed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere only in morning or evening twilight, while its extreme elongations occur in Declinations south of the celestial equator, such that it can be seen at favorable apparitions from moderate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere in a fully dark sky.
snip
==============================
http://www.spacetoday.org/
MESSENGER Explores the Planet Nearest the Sun
After a 2 billion mile cruise and three and a half years, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew within 124 miles of of the planet Mercury on January 14, 2008, pulling itself onto a path that will lead it to orbit our Solar System's innermost planet in 2011.
The MESSENGER flyby was the first visit by a spacecraft to Mercury in three decades.
It took 10 minutes for radio signals from the small interplanetary probe to reach Earth and the flight controllers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
The close approach was necessary for MESSENGER to pick up a gravity assist from Mercury in order to enter orbit around the planet in 2011.
The last and only time a spacecraft flew past Mercury was NASA's Mariner 10 probe in 1975. It mapped about 45 percent of Mercury's surface.
snip
==============================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System,[a] orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits. The perihelion of Mercury's orbit precesses around the Sun at an excess of 43 arcseconds per century; a phenomenon that was explained in the 20th century by Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.[11] Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, ranging from −2.3 to 5.7 in apparent magnitude, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun is only 28.3°. Since Mercury is normally lost in the glare of the Sun, unless there is a solar eclipse it can be viewed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere only in morning or evening twilight, while its extreme elongations occur in Declinations south of the celestial equator, such that it can be seen at favorable apparitions from moderate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere in a fully dark sky.
snip
==============================
http://www.spacetoday.org/
MESSENGER Explores the Planet Nearest the Sun
After a 2 billion mile cruise and three and a half years, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew within 124 miles of of the planet Mercury on January 14, 2008, pulling itself onto a path that will lead it to orbit our Solar System's innermost planet in 2011.
The MESSENGER flyby was the first visit by a spacecraft to Mercury in three decades.
It took 10 minutes for radio signals from the small interplanetary probe to reach Earth and the flight controllers at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
The close approach was necessary for MESSENGER to pick up a gravity assist from Mercury in order to enter orbit around the planet in 2011.
The last and only time a spacecraft flew past Mercury was NASA's Mariner 10 probe in 1975. It mapped about 45 percent of Mercury's surface.
snip
==============================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================
