NASA Mercury Photos: Never-Before-Seen Images From Spacecraft MESSENGER

A U.S. spacecraft beamed hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.

The images show scientists never-before-seen landscapes on the planet's surface.

Four of the high-resolution images were made public at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, posted by NASA on its MESSENGER Web site. Taken during a three-hour span before and after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury, the photos offer detailed new glimpses of the barren planet.

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Check out these photos of Mercury below. (from NASA)

Comments

[3rdCitizen]

Mercury was once a lush, Eden-like planet. But then it had 12 consecutive years of Republican rule.

[StaggerLee]

ROFLMAO

[Stilts9]

FUNNY!

[JacqueItch]

Yes, and they'd still be there but they ran out of money.

[max365]

Brilliant!

[nabrum]

Actually, Palin was the last incumbent there. She didn't have to worry about someone asking her which papers she read.

[pbfishtaco]

I can see Mercury from Alaska!
But ya can' see it from Chicago, don' cha know!
Amazing how many craters there are after only 6000 years.

[Ono4Hoopono]

Re: "Amazing how many craters there are after only 6000 years."

I was thinking that same thing! The evidence is everywhere! Sure we have an atmosphere that burns up a lot of incoming projectiles, but still, those craters are huge!!! Any one of those big ones would get through our atmosphere, so we've collected even more impacts I'm sure in our little butterfly net. Why haven't we been equally pounded in the same 6,000 years. And we even have a bigger diameter/c­ross-secti­on than Mercury here on Earth. Can't we just say even evolution is freaking amazing! Does it really have to be a literal seven days creation to be divine? I'm just sayin'.

[cobraxus]

in the 5th century AD St.Augusti­ne wrote "it's not neccessary for to believe God created the heavens and the Earth in seven days.As christians we believe God is the nebula from which all things come."peop­le who subscribe to creationism aren't just denying science,they're denying the nature of God's creation because it doesn't conform to their narrow viewpoint.­that seems pretty arrogant to me.

[RealityBaseCamp]

About Mercury's rotation, it's not what we were taught in school. In the 70's we (and by that I mean the people with the cool jobs) got a better look at Mercury, and it's more unusual than we thought. The rotation and revolution aren't 1:1, they're 2:3. So forget permanent day/night, and the old 88/88 Earth days thing. Mercury rotates in 58.6 Earth days, it turns out. And its solar day is longer than its year, at 175.94 Earth days. As I understand it, that means there are 2 "hot spots" on the equator opposite each other, which have an extended Noon, I think as the planet gets to perihelion. So instead of one side superhot & the other always cold, there are huge variations in surface temp at those points. Amazing stuff.

[3rdCitizen]

Thanks RBC. I agree, amazing stuff!

[eShirl]

I didn't know that! Thanks for posting.

[laplap]

Earlier in this thread billkarwin (Posted 08:24 PM on 10/07/2008) was describing the old story. You're going to have to hash this out somehow. Maybe arm-wresting on neutral ground?

[RealityBaseCamp]

Woo hoo! Reality Rasslin' on Mercury!

[MagisterLudi]

Consequently, at perihelion one would see the Sun stop and begin retrograde motion for awhile. Now this would a COOL thing to see!!!

[Indedave]

I like to think that all my tax dollars go for rocket fuel for the interplanetary missions and Hubble.

[wolfgangmo]

Yes.

[DragonFly]

Most of our tax dollars go to the creation and delivery of missiles, bullets, weaponized pathogens, military vehicles, bombs, spy gear, rifles, guns and other gadgets created to deliver hell on earth.

And talk about fuel! The military devours it like a drunkard on a binge.

[Heavy]

In other words, into Cheney's stock portfolio.

[Ares1]

Mercury looks no different from the far side of the Moon. Their is a lot that we still don't know about Mercury but one thing is for sure, we know that Mercury has a double sunrise caused by it's strange orbit and it has a massive iron core that gives it a dipolar magnetic field despite it's small size.

[planetjeffy]

Maybe Bush and McCain will retire there next year.

[socialbill]

Actually Mercury has a 3:2 resonance with the Sun. One side does NOT always face the Sun.

[zitlight73]

Those line like a cantalope are interesting.

[Perry Clease]

Yes, like some sort of force is lining something up. Ares1 says that Mercury has a massive iron core, the lines kind of look like a magnet's effect on iron filings.

[AdmNaismith]

By the gods, these are magnificent. Despite how barren Mercury is, they may even be prettier than the nebula pics from Hubble.

[Marichu]

The photos are beautiful even though the images present a stark and barren landscape.

[Allie68]

Thanks for posting this! I work on MESSENGER, and I love Huff Po!

[escobar]

Wow, three cheers for NASA!

[shubes61]

if this election goes the wrong way, i might consider moving there. ;)

[mandalaina]

Was thinking the same thing--either there or France.

[StandUpAmerica08]

It looks much like our moon's surface. I wonder if Mercury was once know as a moon and it's gravitational pull.

[PepeLepew]

Major cool!