Click on the image for movie of
Rendezvous with Mercury
As the MESSENGER spacecraft approached Mercury for its first flyby, the
Narrow Angle Camera, part of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
instrument, acquired a series of images of the planet in support of
spacecraft navigation. The nine images shown here were taken from January
9 to 13, 2008, as MESSENGER closed to between 2.7 million kilometers and
760,000 kilometers (1.7 million miles and 470,000 miles) from Mercury.
These nine images can also be viewed in sequence by clicking on the image above.
At the beginning of the image sequence, Mercury was no more than a bright
crescent in the blackness of space. As MESSENGER drew closer, surface
features began to be resolved. The image from January 13 (bottom right)
has the highest spatial resolution of this sequence (20 kilometers/pixel,
12 miles/pixel). In this image, bright markings are visible, and impact
craters can be seen near the terminator (the line between Mercury's day
side, to the left, and the night side to the right).
During MESSENGER's closest pass by Mercury yesterday, January 14, 2008,
extensive scientific observations were executed. Today, the last of these
planned observations will be completed, and at noon EST, the spacecraft
will begin to transmit the data gathered during the flyby to Earth. This
exciting new dataset will be used to address fundamental questions about
the origin and evolution of the planet Mercury and our solar system.
Currently, the MESSENGER team is anxiously awaiting the arrival of this
dataset.
These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the
first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information
regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy.
