This is one of the better images captured by MESSENGER on its recent flyby of Mercury. An October rendezvous will take the craft to within 124 miles of the surface before it eventually settles into orbit.
If you're wondering why anyone would want to explore Mercury, NASA supplies some answers here.
Wayne
My name is Wayne Hall and I work with the Kentucky space program. Huh? Kentucky what?!
Suffice it to say that a group of talented people are out to change the perception of what's possible in the commonwealth of Kentucky by doing hands-on space science. The very first project of this ambitious enterprise is a cooperative, student-led effort to design, build and fly a CubeSat that kids from the eastern mountains to the western Mississippi river shore can figuratively reach out and touch from classrooms all over the state. The first of many planned efforts, it will rocket to orbit sometime late this year or early next. And with that,
Welcome to the 50th edition of the Carnival of Space! From rocket racing to astronomy to particle physics to the search for intelligent life, this week features a wide variety of space-related topics. So let's dive right in.
New Frontiers has news about the Rocket Racing League and its announcement about upcoming exhibition race dates. Meanwhile, Space Transport News discusses Red Bull air races and the differences and similarities to rocket racing as well as taking some notes from the news conference.
At Altair VI, David S. F. Portree writes about the old NASA Office of Exploration Mars' and Moon vision for space exploration and has something to say about space tourism.
The Planetary Society's Emily Stewart Lakdawalla notes the stunning images of Phobos available from the Mars Express image catalog. A Babe in the Universe follows suit, pointing out that the crater Stickney is 9 km across on a moon only 22 km long. Speaking as a blogger who makes liberal use of CICLOPS and HiRISE images, the pictures coming from current robotic missions are spectacular. I'm looking forward to what MESSENGER and New Horizons might reveal.
Speaking of the planets, Stuart Atkinson at Cumbrian Sky reports on one suggestion to send monkeys to Mars. You read that right. He also provides some images of Pheonix's landing spot on the planet.
Fraser explains why Pluto is no longer a planet. Let's just say that the region beyond Neptune is awfully interesting.
Of the many satellites that dance around Sun, Neptune's Triton is probably not a world that tickles one's imagination when envisioning space colonization. But while it may be ignored as scientists chase after Mars and Titan, Neptune's Triton may in the distant future become a prime location at the edge of our solar system. Colony Worlds asks: Neptune's Triton: Is It Worth Billions, Or Trillions?
This week's Space Video at Space Feeds is the eighth episode of Firefly, Out of Gas.
At Next Big Future, Brian Wang asks whether a $153 million Thin Film Dome inflated over cities might protect against nuclear weapons or perhaps substitute for communication satellites. Russian inventor and researcher Alexander Bolonkin has developed an interesting technology that suggests all kinds of commercial possibilities.
Can Dark Matter be directly detected? Anticipating such an announcement, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel expresses his doubts at Starts with a Bang! It's a question I've also put to Star Stryder, Pamela Gay.
Astronomer Robert Simpson at Orbiting Frog contributes a post to the 50th carnival on Nebulae in 3D. He nominated another post about the late John Wheeler from Daniel Holz at the wonderful group blog Cosmic Variance. Holz movingly recalls his time with the physicist, who was conversant in biology, history and poetry. Please give it a read.
At Out of the Cradle, Ken Murphy continues his look at growing plants on the Moon with a review of the book "Lunar Base Agriculture" in part II of his article "Of a Garden on the Moon".
At Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster, who is surely link-weary from the attention this blog has paid to him, posts a story about "Life as Rarity in the Cosmos," which looks at new research suggesting that we are living rather late in the history of Earth's biosphere. If so, it might have implications for the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. Bottom line: we might find that life itself is rather common, but intelligent life? Not so much.
Do we have anything to worry about from the Large Hadron Collider? Ian O'Neill explains that "an Earth-eating black hole is pretty much impossible."
Ever-prepared, Scouts Canada describes a variety of methods for finding direction without a compass or GPS by using the sun, stars and moon. In practical fashion, Scouts blogger Mang also lends some context to astronomical distances - the discussion includes a scale overlay of the solar system on the City of Toronto using a standard marble for Earth - and writes about modeling a micro-satellite, the Microvariability & Oscillations of STars (MOST) satellite. The MOST team has opened target proposals to the public.
Space Cynics, meanwhile, wonders how prepared Gen-Y is to contribute to the national space program.
Tyler Nordgren is educating visitors about what they learn about the solar system and universe through what they can see for themselves in the dark starry skies above the parks, as well as on the ground around them in the wonderful geological processes and features the parks protect. The most recent entry from this week at Arches National Park is found here.
Finally, at Music of the Spheres, Bruce Irving asks Why Space?, a theme that the Martian Chronicles also picks up on this week, along with providing some great Cape Verde images as seen from everyone's favorite Martian rover.
Why explore indeed! And since it's THAT time again, perhaps it's appropriate that John Benac contribute a post about Political Action for Space, the first space political action committee.
It's been a blast to host the carnival at Kentucky's space program blog this week. KySat hopes to make its own news in the near future. So please come back and please visit all the great blogs and bloggers you see listed here!
Wayne
Along with a number of other presentations at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Pamela Gay live blogged a session on the future of planetary science from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. It's interesting stuff.
Wayne
NASA has posted a brief clip of MESSENGER's Mercury fly-by as well as several other videos in conjunction with yesterday's press conference announcing some of the early results from the mission. Some of it, like the hyperlinked video above, is finding its way to YouTube.
Wayne
Never-before-seen images of Mercury and new scientific findings about the planet will be featured at a news conference planned for Wednesday, according to NASA.
Wayne
The color isn't mind blowing, but look closely at the first color image of Mercury released by MESSENGER. It's a terrific picture.
Wayne
This is one over 1200 images acquired by MESSENGER in its Monday flyby of Mercury, the first visit to the planet in over 30 years. The shadow on the right side if the image is the terminator, which marks the day -night boundary.
Image releases may be seen here.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Wayne
The geological features in the image above from MESSENGER's Mercury flyby this week are described in detail in this Planetary Society post, which also includes a photo of the same area taken by Mariner 30 years ago. The differences are stark.
Wayne
MESSENGER, which is scheduled to enter orbit around Mercury in 2011, will make its first flyby today, taking the first space-borne look at the planet since 1975 according to NASA.
[T]he probe will make three flights past the small planet, skimming as close as 124 miles above Mercury's cratered, rocky surface. MESSENGER's cameras and other sophisticated, high-technology instruments will collect more than 1,200 images and make other observations during this approach, encounter and departure. It will make the first up-close measurements since Mariner 10 spacecraft's third and final flyby on March 16, 1975. When Mariner 10 flew by Mercury in the mid-1970s, it surveyed only one hemisphere.
The passes will enable the mission scientists to do some science that won't be possible once the craft enters orbit. Based on a mission briefing from NASA, The Planetary Society has written a terrific write-up of what to expect.
Wayne
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