Messenger Flyby of Mercury Today!

[Blue Fire]

NASA's Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft is supposed to have done a flyby of Mercury today getting as close as 124 miles. This seems to me like a significant and very exciting event but I've not heard much hype about it at all and I note that the news bot in the Astronomy News forum here didn't list it either.

This is supposed to be the first of 3 Mercury flybys since the mission start in 2004. One of the big mysteries to be investigated is the possibility of ice in the craters near the poles. Imagine that - ice on Mercury! But what I'm looking forward to are the pics - they just Have to be fantastic at that distance! ... though NASA says they don't expect to release the first pics for about a week.

I was also impressed with how they are handling the extreme heat/radiation issues being so close to the Sun and the reflected heat/radiation from the surface of Mercury with Messenger so close to its surface.

Am I the only one who is eagerly awaiting mission results from Messenger?

[Darryl]

I just went to the site. Messenger flew by Mercury just over 10 hours ago. It's supposed to begin transmitting it's data back to earth 22 hours after the closest approach. 124 miles is really close. I'm looking forward to seeing the images. I am not sure why it hasn't received much press yet. It could be because the data hasn't been released so the press doesn't figure there is much to write about.

Here is what it looked like yesterday when it was still 470,000 miles from earth. I imagine a distance of 124 miles is going to look a whole lot closer and detailed.

[Blue Fire]

And finally, you can find another shot of Mercury just released (called their Featured Release) of Mercury's previously unseen side here:
MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging
It was taken at about 17,000 miles, 80 minutes after closest approach. Very encouraging so far, but I'm still eager to see the close-ups at closest approach. At least I'm starting to hear more about the Messenger mission in other forums and miscellaneous sites.

[Blue Fire]

Here's a small pic attachment of the Mercury pic released today: