Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Japanese Kibo Mission - MAXI acquires all-sky X-ray image in the fastest time

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091126_maxi_e.html

I hope you are keeping up with what is happening with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

http://www.jaxa.jp/pr/mail/index_e.html
With this JAXA Mail Service, latest information from JAXA will automatically be e-mailed to your address.
- LRK -

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Japanese Kibo Mission - MAXI acquires all-sky X-ray image in the fastest time
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091126_maxi_e.html
November 26, 2009 (JST)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) RIKEN

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and RIKEN have successfully acquired an all-sky X-ray image (Figure 1.) using the "Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI)" installed on the Exposed Facility of the Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo." This quality image was achieved in the shortest period of time compared to other all-sky X-ray observation projects. In the future, it will be possible to repeatedly take this image every month or every few months.

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091126_maxi_e.html#pict1
Figure 1. All-sky X-ray image by the GSC of the MAXI
The image shows the all-sky in an oval shape on the "galactic coordinate" which indicates the Milky Way as a horizontal axis and the galactic center at the center of the image.

The image above was compiled using data acquired by the Gas Slit Camera (GSC), one of MAXI's onboard X-ray camera systems (Figure 3. in the Attachment), between August 15 and October 29, 2009 (Japan Standard Time.) (Please also refer to Figure 4. in the Attachment.)
Sources plotted in red in this figure radiate low-energy X-rays, and those in blue emit high-energy X-rays.

In this image, nearly 180 X-ray sources can be recognized by the eye.
Taking less than two months to complete, this is the world's quickest acquisition of an all-sky "color" X-ray image. This kind of all-sky X-ray image in a similar sensitivity and energy band was compiled by composing data obtained by the NASA satellite, HEAO-1, 30 years ago through its two-year survey.
(http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960102.html)

In addition, the MAXI reported to an international mailing list of astronomers on five X-ray sources that have suddenly increased their brightness since the beginning of its mission. (A0535+26, GRB090831A, GRB090926B, XTE J1752-223 and 4U2206+54 in Figure 2.)

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/11/20091126_maxi_e.html#pict2
Figure 2. Major X-ray sources and brightened sources detected by MAXI
(For more details, please refer to the Attachment)

snip
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http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/12/20091204_ikaros_e.html
IKAROS International Message Campaign for Mission Support

Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun (IKAROS)
International Message Campaign for Mission Support

December 4, 2009 (JST)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is scheduled to launch the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun (IKAROS)*1 by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle in Japan Fiscal Year 2010 (as a secondary payload to the main payload, Venus Climate Orbiter
"AKATSUKI.")
We would like to launch a mission support campaign together with The Planetary Society in the United States, which also plans to launch a solar sail spacecraft named "LightSail-1"*2 at the end of 2010. JAXA would like to encourage people all over the world to send us their supportive messages to be carried aboard the IKAROS and the LightSail-1 on printed aluminum plates or on a Mini-DVD. We sincerely hope that our campaign will accelerate this international collaboration, exchange and promote the public's understanding of solar sail research and development.

The following is the information about the campaign.

1. Campaign name
"Let's Set Sail for the Solar System on a Solar Yacht!"

2. Campaign period
December 4 (Fri.), 2009 through March 14 (Sun.),
2010 (Japan Standard Time) for the Mini-DVD,
December 4 (Fri.), 2009 through February 28 (Sun.),
2010 (Japan Standard Time) for printed metal plates.

3. How to apply
Please send messages through the following websites.
English site: http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/index.html
Japanese site: http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/index.html

Your names and messages will be recorded and printed.
We are looking forward to hearing from many of you.

snip
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Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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https://wave.google.com/wave/
============================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Sunday, December 6, 2009

The WOW Factor - Reading between the pixels of the Hubble's latest images

The WOW Factor - Reading between the pixels of the Hubble's latest images
By Joel Achenbach
Sunday, December 6, 2009

Dr. Gene Nelson sent me a link to an article in the Washington Post about the Hubble Telescope.
It is 4 long html pages and gives us something to think about. We have these WOW moments when we look at the Hubble images. Then again, having seen a lot of them, we may be in danger of burnout.
http://hubblesite.org/
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

At the beginning of the Apollo missions it was all news and excitement, then things dropped to sound bytes. We are again at the Moon, will this too become sound bytes?
Check out the article.
- LRK -
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113003590.html
The Wow Factor
Reading between the pixels of the Hubble's latest images

By Joel Achenbach
Sunday, December 6, 2009

By this point, we've all seen so many pretty Hubble pictures that we're in danger of pretty-Hubble-picture burnout. We've seen exploding stars galore. We've seen majestic pillars of gas that are spawning new solar systems. We've seen galaxies colliding, galaxies getting ripped apart, galaxies becoming mired in their own ennui. We've seen Mars and Jupiter and Saturn in such stark close-ups that we can detect the cosmetic surgery scars.

We've seen quasars, pulsars, brown dwarfs, exoplanets, globular clusters and assorted nebulosities. It feels as if we've seen it all. Literally. The whole cosmos, soup to nuts. It kind of makes you wonder if we'll run out of new things to discover. Here's a real headline on a November news release from Stanford: "High-precision measurements confirm cosmologists' standard view of the universe." All figured out; everyone go home now.

So, you can just imagine the challenge that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope scientists faced earlier this year. In May, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis flew to the Hubble and, defying a stuck bolt that nearly derailed the mission, removed an old camera and replaced it with a better one. They fixed two other instruments, even though these things were not designed for orbital maintenance. Crew members installed new gyroscopes and batteries. After five spacewalks and much derring-do, Hubble was, in effect, a brand-new space telescope.

But what to look at next? The Hubble people had to pick targets to demonstrate the revamped telescope's abilities. They would call these images the Early Release Observations, or ERO (at NASA, everything has an abbreviation). They wanted to produce pictures with lots of (their term) Wow Factor.

snip
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Dr. Nelson has been looking at the WFPC-2 which was recently retrieved from the Hubble Space Telescope and is at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) for a short time. He has seen many visible pits where space debris has struck the radiator surface while it was deployed. WFPC-2 will be on exhibit at NASM for about 2 months, then it will travel to JPL Maybe if you are in the Washington D.C. area you have a chance to visit NASM.

At the top of the above article there is a link to comments and Dr. Nelson posted one. There are a lot more of them now but I will leave you with what he wrote.
- LRK -

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113003590_Comments.html#
snip

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) on the Mall had a special day-long symposium regarding the Hubble Legacy on 18 November 2009.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=1636

As a symposium attendee, I appreciated the thought-provoking presentations and panel discussions. There are some special artifacts from the Hubble Space Telescope including COSTAR and the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) that are on special exhibition at the NASM. Some of them will only be there until the end of December, 2009. Be sure and schedule a visit before then. The new "Moving Beyond Earth" Gallery has two of the three new Hubble artifacts - and plenty of "Wow!" with some innovative large scale moving graphics.

(The Hubble Legacy Symposium was made possible by financial support from the Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.)
12/5/2009 9:49:59 PM
snip
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Step back, take a breath, and prepare for a New Year and many more WOW events.
Don't let the excitement wane.
Give it away and watch it come back.

There is much, much, more to learn.
WOW!
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
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Google Wave: larry.kellogg@googlewave.com
Google Wave Invite info:
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https://wave.google.com/wave/
============================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Saturday, December 5, 2009

LCROSS Science Briefing November 13th 2009

One advantage to social networking is being able to see what others have seen that you may ave missed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xVlBa6YKH4
- LRK -
-----
Bob_Richards

RT @NASA_Ames: [News] @LCROSS_NASA team Press Conference http://bit.ly/6QW8wR
[splashdown results, intro by Pete @Worden]
-----
The LCROSS Press Conference on YouTube is an hour and 20 minutes with the first 31 minutes the presentation the rest devoted to questions and answers.

I found it interesting and you could sense the excitement of the preseters.

Watching it brought back fond memories of sitting in the same auditorium when I was working at NASA Ames Research Center.

A Facebook link about LCROSS
- LRK -

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=154478180006&share_id=175094893166&comments=1
Links on "LCROSS Lunar Impactor Mission"

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html
LCROSS Impact Data Indicates Water on Moon

It will be interesting to see what develops as a result of spacecraft orbiting the Moon and finding more about our nearest neighbor.

We will wait for the results from the LRO mission and how their data complements what is being seen from LCROSS.
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/

http://www.examiner.com/x-958-Tampa-Space-Program-News-Examiner~y2009m11d13-LROLCROSS-Mission-a-success--Water-on-the-moon
http://article.wn.com/view/2009/11/13/LRO_LCROSS_Mission_a_success_Water_on_the_moon_puts_moonfirs/
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/indias-lunar-mission-finds-water-on-moon-roundup_100251903.html

Exciting times and next year should be interesting too.

I hope the excitement finds its way into the ears of our Congress as well.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/344612main_Agency_Summary_Final_updates_5_6_09_R2.pdf
NASA FY 2010 Budget Request Summary

Mother may I have a cookie? Have you eaten all of your dinner?
Now where was the cookie jar hidden?

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
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Google Wave: larry.kellogg@googlewave.com
Google Wave Invite info:
http://www.googlewaveinvite.com/category/google-wave-news/
https://wave.google.com/wave/
============================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Pioneer Anomaly in the Light of New Data

Carl Walter asked me for an update on the Pioneer Anomaly and I had to check and see if anything new was being published.
I thought I would check and see if Dr. Slava Turyshev and Viktor Toth might have something and sure enough, google found this.
[Note: Viktor hosts my web site so maybe a bit biased. - LRK -]
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The Pioneer Anomaly in the Light of New Data
Abstract
The radio-metric tracking data received from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft from the distances between 20–70 astronomical units from the Sun has consistently indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, blue-shifted Doppler frequency drift that limited the accuracy of the orbit reconstruction for these vehicles. This drift was interpreted as a sunward acceleration of aP = (8.74±1.33)×10−10 m/s2 for each particular spacecraft. This signal has become known as the Pioneer anomaly; the nature of this anomaly is still being investigated.

Recently new Pioneer 10 and 11 radio-metric Doppler and flight telemetry data became available. The newly available Doppler data set is much larger when compared to the data used in previous investigations and is the primary source for new investigation of the anomaly. In addition, the flight telemetry files, original project documentation, and newly developed software tools are now used to reconstruct the engineering history of spacecraft. With the help of this information, a thermal model of the Pioneers was developed to study possible contribution of thermal recoil force acting on the spacecraft. The goal of the ongoing efforts is to evaluate the effect of on-board systems on the spacecrafts’ trajectories and possibly identify the nature of this anomaly.

Techniques developed for the investigation of the Pioneer anomaly are applicable to the New Horizons mission. Analysis shows that anisotropic thermal radiation from on-board sources will accelerate this spacecraft by ∼41×10−10 m/s2.We discuss the lessons learned from the study of the Pioneer anomaly for the New Horizons spacecraft. Keywords Pioneer anomaly · gravitational experiments · deep-space navigation · thermal modeling.

Slava G. Turyshev
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology,
4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA
E-mail: turyshev@jpl.nasa.gov
Viktor T. Toth
Ottawa, ON K1N 9H5, Canada
E-mail: vttoth@vttoth.com
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We haven't always had spacecraft you know.
I just finished reading a chapter from "The YOUNG FOLKS TREASURY", Vol. VIII, "WONDERS OF SCIENCE AND INVENTION", entitled "The Motor Vehicle," by Herbert T. Wade, where he talks about cars that used steam, or electricity, or even a gas-engine. Oh, I failed to mention, the books were copyright 1909, a year before my mom started her life of living through all these technological advances. :-)
[Note to myself - I can still read a hundred year old book - Wonder if my Amiga computer still works.]
I can't wait to read the next chapter, "The Flying Machine," and then "The Gyroscope and Its Applications."
Could they have even thought about Cell Phones that show pictures that rotate to match which way you hold it?
Are we having fun yet? And what will we think of when we start developing the resources of the Moon?

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Friday, November 20, 2009

What an interesting time we live in.

I am watching on cable TV the Numb3s program where mathematics is used to solve FBI crime cases.
I know, it is TV, but still, an interesting program that shows how mathematics can be useful, well if you are a math genius. :-)
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/numb3rs/

At the same time I am watching on my laptop the live TV of the STS-129 crew and the those on the ISS with a Bluetooth wireless headset so as not to bother others.
This has been from launch to docking to working on EVAs.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts129/
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
http://tinyurl.com/ykh2hb8 for Plantronics

Then there is Google's new Wave where a YouTube of NASA TV live has been made available to those that have received invitations to the pre-Beta release of Wave.
https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BAAcnCi2UA

And a Wave that has useful links for the STS-129 mission.
https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BNH3IxUaoG

We now have intelligent cell phones where you can send pictures, use GPS navigation, play games, search the Internet, and even call a friend by way of voice or text.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/index.html
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phones/pda-phones-smartphones.jsp
http://pocketpccentral.net/device_menus/android.htm
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphone-reviews/

Missions are now taking place at our nearest neighbor, the Moon or have recently ended.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_and_future_lunar_missions
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/17/MNJ41887O2.DTL
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10268241-239.html
http://www.kaguya.jaxa.jp/index_e.htm
http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/3240/early-end-to-indias-moon-mission
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/01/content_7523687.htm

And of course there have been and are deep space probes.
http://www.vttoth.com/probes/probes.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_probe
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/deepspace/index.html

Now when do we as Earth bound citizens learn to live off world and establish a human presence?
http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/colonies.html
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/explore/colonies/
http://www.nss.org/settlement/library.html

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
Google Wave Invite info: http://mashable.com/2009/09/29/google-wave-invites-2/
http://www.googlewaveinvite.com/
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/
http://www.googlewaveinvite.com/category/google-wave-news/
===========================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Deadly Debris

Back in February 2009, I posted to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond blog some items dealing with space debris.
http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/2009/02/up-up-and-away-ping-ping-thunk-thud-and.html

Chad sent me a link to Mike Combs short story, "Deadly Debris" which it looks like DARPA should now read. A very riviting story.
http://writings.mike-combs.com/deaddebr.htm

In September DARPA released a Request for Information (RFI) regarding orbital debris removal capabilities. Tiny URL for
http://tinyurl.com/yl6j33v

Launchspace http://www.launchspace.com/editorials.html had an editorial September 28, 2009 entitled Space Debris Gets Some Respect, which mentions it.
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For the last few decades the international space community has freely used near-Earth space for many important applications without regard for the impact of artificial satellites on the space environment. Although space-faring nations have spewed trash from 200 km to beyond 36,000 km, the space below about 1,600 km has been severely abused. Recent events have finally persuaded the U.S. Government to start thinking about cleaning up this environmental "super fund site." No, it is not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that has been given the task of figuring out how to remove space debris. It is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a part of the Department of Defense (DOD).

On September 17th, DARPA released a Request for Information (RFI) regarding orbital debris removal capabilities. This request is addressed to all potential domestic and foreign sources and it asks for innovative solutions that might lead to the eventual removal of orbital debris.
snip
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If folks would like to participate in on-line discussions of topics like Deadly Debris in space, Google has a way to do this with Google Wave.

It is by invitation only for now and MemphisDJ sent me an invitation so I have been reading up on Google Wave, watching videos, and looking at some conversations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave
http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

I thought I would post this to a New Wave and if you have a Google Wave account you can let me know what you think.
Title is: Deadly Debris
https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252B091sB_F2A.1

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
GoogleWave larry.kellogg@googlewave.com
Google Wave Invite info:
http://mashable.com/2009/09/29/google-wave-invites-2/
http://www.googlewaveinvite.com/
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/
http://www.googlewaveinvite.com/category/google-wave-news/
===========================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Hidden Territory on Mercury Revealed

SpaceWarper sent me an alert for the recent information about the MESSENGER spacecraft third flyby of Mercury.

I must admit that I have not been following the mission closely.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php

My bad, as there are some interesting results and the spacecraft isn't even in orbit yet.
- LRK -
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http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/03nov_hiddenterritory.htm?list1335507
Hidden Territory on Mercury Revealed
11/03/2009

Nov. 3, 2009: The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail.

"The new images remind us that Mercury continues to hold surprises," says Sean Solomon, principal investigator for the mission and director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The probe flew by Mercury on Sept. 29th, executing a critical gravity assist maneuver designed to help MESSENGER enter Mercury-orbit in 2011. Despite shutting down temporarily because of a power system switchover during a solar eclipse, the spacecraft's cameras and instruments revealed 6 percent of the planet's surface never before seen at close range, including this picturesque region pocked by impact craters and molded by volcanic activity:
snip
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IRON AND TITANIUM SURFACE

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1104/p02s10-usgn.html
NASA's Messenger probe reveals new clues about Mercury

Mercury, the oddest of the rocky planets, has been little understood by scientists. But on a swing by the planet, NASA's Messenger sent back intriguing data about Mercury's surface minerals and volcanic activity.

NASA's Mercury mission spacecraft, Messenger, is revolutionizing humanity's view of the first rock from the sun. And its primary science mission hasn't even started yet.

During its third and final flyby of Mercury, NASA's Messenger has found minerals on the planet's surface that current models say shouldn't be there in such abundance. And it appears that the planet was volcanically active – explosively so – for far longer than current ideas about its geological history suggest.

The flyby took place Sept. 29. Mission scientists unveiled highlights from the flyby during a press briefing Tuesday afternoon.
snip
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Many images and much information.
- LRK -

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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/presscon_multi6.html
MESSENGER Teleconference Multimedia Page

Presenter #1
Sean Solomon, MESSENGER Principal Investigator, The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.

A MESSENGER color observation of Mercury obtained as the spacecraft approached the planet for its third and final flyby on 29 September 2009. The 1000, 700, and 430 nm filters were combined in red, green, and blue to create this color image (approximately 5 km/pixel resolution), the last that will be acquired until MESSENGER goes into orbit around Mercury in March of 2011. Only 6% of Mercury's surface in this image had not been viewed previously by spacecraft, and most of the measurements made by MESSENGER's other instruments during this flyby were made prior to closest approach. The observations nonetheless revealed fresh surprises.

Presenter #2
Ronald J. Vervack, Jr., MESSENGER Participating Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

Illustration of the major source and loss processes that generate and maintain Mercury’s exosphere. The panels on the left summarize the three primary sources of exospheric material. Photon-stimulated desorption occurs when solar photons excite surface-bound atoms or molecules, releasing them to the exosphere. Sunlight also heats the surface, causing atoms and molecules to evaporate. These are both low-energy processes, so most of the released material reaches only low altitudes and usually returns to the surface. Ion sputtering occurs when ions from the solar wind or Mercury’s magnetosphere impact the surface, “knocking off” atoms and molecules. Meteoroid vaporization occurs when incoming meteoroids, generally small dust particles, impact Mercury’s surface at high speeds, causing the surface material to vaporize. Both ion sputtering and meteoroid vaporization are high-energy processes, and the released material can reach high altitudes. All material in the exosphere is accelerated in the anti-sunward direction by radiation pressure; atoms and molecules at sufficiently high altitudes for this force to overcome the gravitational influence of the planet enter Mercury’s neutral tail. Neutral constituents in the tail either escape the Mercury system or are ionized by solar radiation. The ionized material can also escape along open magnetic field lines, but some of the ions are returned to the surface by Mercury’s magnetosphere.
snip

Presenter #3
David J. Lawrence, MESSENGER Participating Scientist,
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

Schematic view of Mercury’s interior showing its large, iron-rich core, which constitutes at least ~60% of the planet’s mass.
Observations from Earth and by MESSENGER at visible and near-infrared wavelengths have shown that Mercury’s surface has a very low concentration of iron (Fe) in silicate minerals, leading to the common view that Mercury’s surface and crust are generally low in iron. A puzzle for investigations of Mercury’s formation and evolution is how a planet with such a large Fe-rich core could form with such an Fe-poor surface?
snip

Presenter #4
Brett Denevi, MESSENGER Imaging Team member and Postdoctoral Researcher, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

Combined image coverage map of Mercury after Mariner 10 and MESSENGER’s first two flybys of Mercury. Although 90% of Mercury’s surface had been imaged after MESSENGER’s second flyby, there was a gap in longitudinal coverage centered at about 60° E.
snip

[Note: your really want to go to the reference link to see all the images and information I left out. - LRK -]
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/presscon_multi6.html

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Why Mercury - First Rock from the Sun.
- LRK -

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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/why_mercury/index.html
Mercury: The Key to Terrestrial Planet Evolution

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are terrestrial (rocky) planets. Among these, Mercury is an extreme: the smallest, the densest (after correcting for self-compression), the one with the oldest surface, the one with the largest daily variations in surface temperature, and the least explored. Understanding this "end member" among the terrestrial planets is crucial to developing a better understanding of how the planets in our Solar System formed and evolved. To develop this understanding, the MESSENGER mission, spacecraft, and science instruments are focused on answering six key outstanding questions that will allow us to understand Mercury as a planet. For additional, detailed information about the driving science questions of the MESSENGER mission, check out some of the articles given on the MESSENGER publication list.
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/publications.html
snip
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Read more about the mission.
- LRK -

--------------------------------------------
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/index.html
The Mission

To become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, MESSENGER must follow a path through the inner solar system, including one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury. This impressive journey is returning the first new spacecraft data from Mercury since the Mariner 10 mission over 30 years ago. Here you can find details about that journey, the MESSENGER spacecraft, and the instrument payload.
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Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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