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The theme of this blog is not only and obviously space, but in particular “terrestrial worlds”, places that tend to have surfaces on which one could walk or at least attach oneself to. These places sometimes also have other earth-like familiar features such as atmospheres, weather, volcanos, geysers and perhaps, we are finding, even exotic oceans, rivers or lakes that are not necessarily made of familiar materials we are used to here at home. The second theme is imagery. Occasionally I do some retouching of images when needed if an image is incomplete or sometimes “dirty” or noisy. I will attempt to correct image shortcomings based upon other images or well-accepted presumed attributes. When this is done, notes will be offered as to what was added, why and sometimes how it was done. This way no one should ever wonder if something they are looking at is real or photoshop.
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11 Responses to “Messenger’s First Mercury Image in Color”
1/10 the distance is a gross understatement.
If you think THIS looks uninteresting, wait for actual natural color images… At least it’s more colorful than our old Moon.
i don’t mean to dis old mercury… but as the owner of a blog specializing in imagery, it is a bit of a disappointing place as it seems a duplicate of our own moon to the uneducated eye. i am spoiled by io and europa and titan.
Closer. What did you expect of Mercury prior to this flyby? Why do you think we needed to wait 30 years for this in the first place?
The place turned out MORE colorful than I expected.
i like that there is a messenger mission, i just think that ESA also planning a Bepi/Columbo just makes me wish they had chosen to spend that money on another target. one mission at mercury is enough for me… give me ten missions at europa (i know they have very different requirements / challenges).
Mercury has something Europa doesn’t - power available. Europe doesn’t have RTGs so they can’t easily send a probe to the outer solar system. They’re stuck in the inner solar system for the time being. What other option was there for them - Venus? Yet ANOTHER Mars mission?
What if MESSENGER suddenly fails before even reaching Mercury orbit, would you regret BepiColombo then?
I can’t believe we’re actually arguing over too many missions to a body. We should be glad there ARE missions being launched. Remember the ’80s?
true that. i am spoiled… the 90’s were so awesome that i look at the next 10 years and see a big gap coming again as nothing big has been officially slated yet. but i didn’t know the europeans didn’t have the ability to get beyond mars at this point.
at any rate, i love as many missions as possible. i was just wishing we didn’t have 2 overlapping one target that is less enthralling than so many others.
but i had also thought that BC was also a possible Messenger back-up… that is actually what made me wonder if they might switch out for a new target now that Messenger seems destined to be successful.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:16 am
I feel cheated. It looks just like the other images!
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 am
shhh… stop reminding the viewing public how it looks just like our own moon which is 1/10 the distance and way easier to orbit.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
1/10 the distance is a gross understatement.
If you think THIS looks uninteresting, wait for actual natural color images… At least it’s more colorful than our old Moon.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
If you stretch the colors, you can see some interesting things. (see the lower image)
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
i don’t mean to dis old mercury… but as the owner of a blog specializing in imagery, it is a bit of a disappointing place as it seems a duplicate of our own moon to the uneducated eye. i am spoiled by io and europa and titan.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
how is 1/100?
January 24th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Closer. What did you expect of Mercury prior to this flyby? Why do you think we needed to wait 30 years for this in the first place?
The place turned out MORE colorful than I expected.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
i like that there is a messenger mission, i just think that ESA also planning a Bepi/Columbo just makes me wish they had chosen to spend that money on another target. one mission at mercury is enough for me… give me ten missions at europa (i know they have very different requirements / challenges).
January 25th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Mercury has something Europa doesn’t - power available. Europe doesn’t have RTGs so they can’t easily send a probe to the outer solar system. They’re stuck in the inner solar system for the time being. What other option was there for them - Venus? Yet ANOTHER Mars mission?
What if MESSENGER suddenly fails before even reaching Mercury orbit, would you regret BepiColombo then?
I can’t believe we’re actually arguing over too many missions to a body. We should be glad there ARE missions being launched. Remember the ’80s?
January 25th, 2008 at 11:04 am
true that. i am spoiled… the 90’s were so awesome that i look at the next 10 years and see a big gap coming again as nothing big has been officially slated yet. but i didn’t know the europeans didn’t have the ability to get beyond mars at this point.
at any rate, i love as many missions as possible. i was just wishing we didn’t have 2 overlapping one target that is less enthralling than so many others.
but i had also thought that BC was also a possible Messenger back-up… that is actually what made me wonder if they might switch out for a new target now that Messenger seems destined to be successful.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:05 am
nothing big except Mars Lab of course.