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MESSENGER completes first Mercury fly-by |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
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 The first mission to Mercury in 33 years has arrived. NASA's MESSENGER probe early this week completed its first fly-by of our solar system's innermost planet, beginning a mission to survey and map Mercury. The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging probe took over 1200 images during the fly-by, a precursor to when the probe will fall into orbit around Mercury and map the whole planet.
Mercury, which gained the position of our solar system's smallest planet after Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status, is the least explored of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars). Mankind has only sent one mission to Mercury, Mariner 10 in 1974. The craft made three approaches to Mercury, and only managed to map 45% of the surface. The mission did reveal Mercury up-close for the first time, unveiling its heavily cratered surface and giant scarps thought to have resulted from shrinkage caused as the planet's iron core cooled.
MESSENGER is only the second mission to Mercury, and launched from Cape Canaveral in 2004. Because of Mercury's closeness to the sun (averaging 58 million km - Earth is nearly 3 times that distance), temperatures on the surface and nearby spacecraft can reach incredible temperatures, upwards of 600 F (315 C). To combat the heat, NASA engineered a sun shade that will help to shield MESSENGER's instrumentation from the sun, keeping them at close to room temperature.
MESSENGER is scheduled to complete two more fly-bys of Mercury in October of this year and September 2009, before falling into an elliptical orbit in 2011. The mission will study several aspects of Mercury, including the origin of its mysterious magnetic field, the structure of its iron core, if there is ice anywhere on the planet (most likely at the poles), and the source of Mercury's thin atmosphere - the planet does not have the gravitational pull to retain an atmostphere of its own.
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