January 16, 200818 yr http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ The MESSENGER probe made its first flyby of Mercury on Monday. This is the first detailed picture of Mercury in 33 years. It's also the first image of this side of the planet. When Mariner 10 made three flybys beginning in 1974, its solar orbit was just right so that it saw the exact same side of Mercury all three times it passed by. MESSENGER will pass the planet two more times (later this year, and in 2009), then in 2011 it will enter orbit around Mercury for a high-res mapping and spectrometry mission.
January 16, 200818 yr Author Looks a lot like the Moon to me. It's actually a monochrome picture taken through a red filter. Color pictures are forthcoming. But it does look kinda like the Moon. Mariner 10 shows there's not much compositional difference in its surface.
January 16, 200818 yr Darn, for years I've been awaiting this hoping the other side of Mercury had colonies of space monkeys. Turns out it looks just like the other side of Mercury. What a lame planet.
January 17, 200818 yr What a lame and friggin' hot planet. Fixed. :cool Actually, if you're not in the sunny side of Mercury you're in the hundreds of degrees below zero territory. :geek Venus is the friggin' hot planet. Just ask the idiotic Russians, who tried to land a probe there.
January 18, 200818 yr Author What a lame and friggin' hot planet. Fixed. :cool Actually, if you're not in the sunny side of Mercury you're in the hundreds of degrees below zero territory. :geek Venus is the friggin' hot planet. Just ask the idiotic Russians, who landed several probes there. Fixed. :mischief
January 18, 200818 yr What a lame and friggin' hot planet. Fixed. :cool Actually, if you're not in the sunny side of Mercury you're in the hundreds of degrees below zero territory. :geek Venus is the friggin' hot planet. Just ask the idiotic Russians, who landed several probes there. Fixed. :mischief If you count ones that burn up in the atmosphere, but I'm going to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt and assume that was their goal. There is no way they were that stupid. :whistle
January 18, 200818 yr Author What a lame and friggin' hot planet. Fixed. :cool Actually, if you're not in the sunny side of Mercury you're in the hundreds of degrees below zero territory. :geek Venus is the friggin' hot planet. Just ask the idiotic Russians, who landed several probes there. Fixed. :mischief If you count ones that burn up in the atmosphere, but I'm going to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt and assume that was their goal. There is no way they were that stupid. :whistle Venera 7 Venera 8 Venera 9 Venera 10 Venera 11 Venera 12 Venera 13 Venera 14 Vega 1 Vega 2 Those are the successful landers. Russia renames failed probes as "Cosmos" generally.
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