Solar HERO: Mercury

[Basil]

Some (fairly) new info about Mercury: It has a liquid core, it's shrinking, it has volcanoes, and we've learned something about the composition of its surface.

 

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/03jul_mercuryupdate.htm

 

With more pictures at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/multi04.html

 

And a gorgeous (enhanced color) photo at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080710.html (man, that must have been one heck of an impact!)

 

Mercury looks a heck of a lot more interesting than it used to.

[tkdguy]

Re: Solar HERO: Mercury

 

Pretty interesting stuff. Now I can have another reason to put a scientific space station orbiting there in my scifi campaign.

[Cancer]

Re: Solar HERO: Mercury

 

Considering that it had been since the old Mariner X mission, about the time I graduated from high school in the mid-1970's, since the last space mission to Mercury, it was very overdue. It was only in 1965 that the planet's real rotation period was identified; prior to that the (plausible) conclusion of synchronous, 88-day rotation was the best number.

 

And yes, the Caloris Basin was formed by a catastrophic impact, like Mare Orientale on the Moon. The best Mariner X image of Caloris is here, showing a bit less than half of it, enough to make the multi-ring features apparent.