NASA Posts First Orbital Images of Mercury

[Guest]

The mission, which began more than six years ago in August of 2004, appears to be proceeding according to plan

NASA Posts First Orbital Images of Mercury : Read more

 

[jednx01]

That's pretty cool actually... I feel bad for the nasa people when something goes wrong. All that work, years of time dedicated to the project, and then it fails. On the other hand, when they succeed, the results can be truly amazing...They're taking pictures of something 4.9 BILLION miles away. That's pretty darn impressive in my book...

 

[amk09]

[citation][nom]jednx01[/nom]That's pretty cool actually... I feel bad for the nasa people when something goes wrong. All that work, years of time dedicated to the project, and then it fails. On the other hand, when they succeed, the results can be truly amazing...They're taking pictures of something 4.9 BILLION miles away. That's pretty darn impressive in my book...[/citation]

yes it very cool but mercury is not 4.9 billion miles away -.-

4.9 billion miles is the TOTAL distance traveled by mercury. Currently mercury is around 96 million miles from earth. lol.

 

[amk09]

[citation][nom]amk09[/nom]yes it very cool but mercury is not 4.9 billion miles away -.-4.9 billion miles is the TOTAL distance traveled by mercury. Currently mercury is around 96 million miles from earth. lol.[/citation]

EDIT: TOTAL distance traveled by MESSENGER*** Oops.

 

[Skiddywinks]

God, someone edit the shit out of this article already.

The bold is doubled up, plus;
"...which included 15 circulations of the sun the sun..."

Excellent news for NASA. Thanks for pointing this out, I would have had no idea otherwise.

 

[_Cubase_]

Apparently the mission, which began more than six years ago in August of 2004, appears to be proceeding according to plan. =oP

 

[ekubaskie]

They're just getting practiced up for April 1st. Lots of goofy stuff here the last couple days. Spam comments, odd glitches in the adwords stuff, like connects to ads not logically connected to the word.

Think I'll stay away tomorrow before I get link-napped to some lemonparty blue waffle stuff - or worse! JBeiberFanClub.org!

 

[captaincharisma]

thank god its mercury because the last thing the public wants to see is the first orbital images of Uranus

sorry but someone had to say it

 

[jednx01]

[citation][nom]amk09[/nom]yes it very cool but mercury is not 4.9 billion miles away -.-4.9 billion miles is the TOTAL distance traveled by mercury. Currently mercury is around 96 million miles from earth. lol.[/citation]
True.... I read it fairly quickly. I guess I didn't read it quite as carefully as I should have.

 

[Guest]

who the hell wrote this article, does he stutter stutter?

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]thank god its mercury because the last thing the public wants to see is the first orbital images of Uranus sorry but someone had to say it[/citation]
(Yes, I get the joke)

However, I would really be interested in a mission to Uranus (and Neptune) along the same lines as Cassini and Galileo. Considering Uranus and Neptune a different type of gas giant than Saturn/Jupiter it'd be interesting to have some more detailed data than what we got/get from the Voyager 2 flyby and a few Hubble images.

Uranus is also interesting to me because it's currently receiving sunlight on its equator vs the polar sunlight it was receiving during the Voyager flyby. The recent Hubble images makes it appear to be behaving/appearing more like Neptune was during the Voyager flyby and I think it'd be interesting to see how Uranus's behavior changes as it moves into it's next 20 year season.

 

[dark_lord69]

eh... looks like the moon...
With temps ranging from 840, -276 it just goes to show how the conditions for life to thrive need to be nearly perfect relative to other extremes and that our planet is truely rare.

 

[zak_mckraken]

Actually, I think an excavation expedition into Uranus could be fascinating. I really think we could make amazing discoveries in there. Also, the frequent gas eruptions, while noxious, could be harvested and used as fuel. There's real potential in Uranus.

 

[buzznut]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]eh... looks like the moon...With temps ranging from 840, -276 it just goes to show how the conditions for life to thrive need to be nearly perfect relative to other extremes and that our planet is truely rare.[/citation]
Actually, according to many astrophysicists, such as Stephen Hawking, the number of Earth-like planets is really staggering. We once thought that conditions here were unique, but we are discovering that many planets beyond our solar system have earth like properties. (Size, likelihood of presence of water, etc.) Not so unique anymore.

 

[eddieroolz]

This is amazing work done by brilliant minds. Hats off to them.

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]buzznut[/nom]Actually, according to many astrophysicists, such as Stephen Hawking, the number of Earth-like planets is really staggering. We once thought that conditions here were unique, but we are discovering that many planets beyond our solar system have earth like properties. (Size, likelihood of presence of water, etc.) Not so unique anymore.[/citation]
Yeah, an article from earlier today:

http://www.space.com/11279-nasa-alien-planets-image-1235-exoplanets.html

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]maestintaolius[/nom]Yeah, an article from earlier today:[/citation]
Bah, well anyway it's on space.com under kepler, supposedly 56 potential "goldilocks" planets.

 

[11796pcs]

buzznut- Would you care to go to all of those planets and check their safety for us all? I would also like to see a planet with all three states of water present and some land sutible for agriculture and hopefully it won't take 100 years to get to it because that would surely defeat the purpose of going to another planet. Also- I can't for certain believe someone who tells me looking through a telescope to the other side of the universe that water exists on a certain planet. For all logical purposes- our planet is very unique.

P.S. I would like to have you compare the number of even slightly possible to be inhabited on planets to the total amount of planets in the universe.

 

[retrig]

Typical Douglas Perry article ftw! Re-read your stuff dude, jeez!

 

[nottheking]

This advancement is another step forward for science... Even if this article is a giant leap back for proofreading.

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]eh... looks like the moon...With temps ranging from 840, -276 it just goes to show how the conditions for life to thrive need to be nearly perfect relative to other extremes and that our planet is truely rare.[/citation]
Naw, it just shows that, if we look in obviously unusual places, we'll see alien conditions. I think it's safe to say that, while an estimated 2 billion "goldilocks planets" (solid planets of the right range to have liquid water) exist, chances are that there aren't any systems that have many, or possibly even 2: that "habitable zone" is an area you can't always have all the planets in. Some will be too far out, and some, like Mercury, will be too far in.

The temperature extremes are due to the fact that Mercury, unlike all other 7 planets in the solar system, has no appreciable atmosphere whatsoever. Hence, there's nothing to insulate it or to help even out the heat spread. Similar extremes (though with lower temperatures overall) can be found on the Moon, for the exact same reason.

[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]hopefully it won't take 100 years to get to it because that would surely defeat the purpose of going to another planet. [/citation]
Naw, vast interstellar travel is possible within a lifetime, so long as you can achieve close enough to the speed of light, thanks to a well-demonstrated (if arcane-seeming to laymen) phenomenon known as time dilation; for a spacecraft (as well as occupants) traveling at such high speeds, time itself would effectively slow, such as that, say, at 0.99c (aka 99% the speed of light) time is stretched to approximately 50 times, so that a 99-lightyear journey would still take 100 years of real time, but would only feel like 2 years for the passengers of the ship.

[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]Also- I can't for certain believe someone who tells me looking through a telescope to the other side of the universe that water exists on a certain planet.[/citation]
Unfortunately for you, just because you don't understand the science behind some discoveries doesn't nullify them. Those skilled in Spectroscopy will know that you can tell whole worlds of tales simply by studying the spectral lines of a planet. There's no real fault in not understanding, though: while Newton discovered the light spectrum some three centuries ago, he merely noted the WHAT, and not the WHY of it: that took the development of quantum mechanics to explain, which didn't happen until the beginning of the 20th century by the likes of Max Planck and Albert Einstein.

The Kepler mission, which stands to increase our catalog of known alien worlds by >200% by the end of the year, is well-suited here, since all the planets it spots eclipse their parent stars already. So, from there it's a simple matter of comparing eclipse and non-eclipse spectra, and noting the subtle differences. Since each element, and even molecule, has a unique spectral fingerprint, it can allow for statements with high confidence that a specific substance has been detected in the atmosphere of said planet.

[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]For all logical purposes- our planet is very unique.P.S. I would like to have you compare the number of even slightly possible to be inhabited on planets to the total amount of planets in the universe.[/citation]
I can't quite say compared to the total number of PLANETS, partly since, of course, there's still some question on what qualifies as a "planet" or not.

But when it comes to "Earth-like" planets compared to the number of STARS, for the Milky Way Galaxy, the estimate currently stands at around 1.4-2.7% of all late F-Type, all G-Type, and early K-type stars have Earth-like planets. (that's the article that others had mentioned, BTW) In this case, it *IS* a bit broad: simply being in the habitable zone and having a diameter 0.8-2.0 times that of Earth; i.e, large enough to hold a thick atmosphere, but not too large to be a gas giant. Still, since Earth is the only one in our own solar system, (Venus is not within the habitable zone, and Mars is both outside and too small) this certainly narrows things down a lot.

All told, just like Ptolemy's model of the geo-centric universe was cast aside by the Copernican model, the Rare Earth Hypothesis, too, will be discarded for the Mediocrity Principle.