Sunday, 20 March 2011

Mercury Rising

In another of those space stories that never cease to amaze me, NASA's Messenger Probe has arrived at Mercury and thus become the first probe to do so. The spacecraft is now some 46 million km (29 million miles) from the Sun, and about 155 million km (96 million miles) from Earth.

How mind blowing is that and what will it find?

Mercury's proximity to the Sun means exposed equator surfaces can reach more than 600C; and yet there may be water-ice at the poles in craters that are in permanent shadow. Mercury also retains a magnetic field, something which is absent on Venus and Mars.

If only we could find away to really travel the Solar System, and the Galaxy to see for ourselves ... maybe to quote the immortal words *"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain .... Time to die."

Ah well, I will just have to feed off photo's and artists impressions .....

Sunrise On Mercury
* Rutger Hauer as the Replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Cult Film 'Blade Runner'.

4 comments:

  1. To be more accurate it is the first probe to go into orbit around Mercury. A few other probes has been there before, but it was just a drive by mission. This one has a bit more of a long term stay about it.

    Still hats off to NASA for getting it bang on target again, especially since they lost another rocket/staelite the weeke before.

    I was amazed when they hit a small lump of icy rock in the middle of inter-planetary space, with something the size of a dustbin. And yet the same people fire rockets that can't detect a wedding from an arms dump in Afganistan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey ... didn't see this comment when made. Just spotted the Anon comment. Sorry about that mate. By coincidence I'm watching the NASA Moonwalk film on Quest as I reply .,... very weird!

      Delete
  2. Good point LOL

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks mate. I wouldn't have seen the other post comment if not for yours .... yes he did make a good point.

      Delete

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.