MESSENGER homing in on Mercury again

Hi,

NASA's MESSENGER probe is coming (now less than 2 million km away) near a Oct 6th 2008 gravity assist/scientific fly-by.

This fascinating little world is very warm during its day but bitterly cold at night.

The planet has a large core (compare with our moon which either a very small or no core). Yet another collision from a Planetary Embryo in the early solar system?

See the John Hopkins messenger.jhuapl.edu/ site for more info,

John

Hi,

MESSENGER is now beaming back its data and images from yesterdays Mercury fly-by (to be released later today). Although primarily a gravity sling-shot, some great science is also being done.

Already optical navigation images show an intriguing bright fresh crater.

John

tinyurl.com/4mkjv5

Hi,


More rays (just look at them!) and scarps.

Soon time to update:

history.nasa.gov/SP-423/sp423.htm

enjoy a new world

John