Click on the image for movie of
MESSENGER Departs Mercury
On January 13, 2008, beginning 30 hours before MESSENGER's closest
approach to Mercury, the Wide Angle Camera, part of the Mercury Dual
Imaging System (MDIS), began snapping images as it approached the planet.
Over this period, MESSENGER imaged the planet once every 20 minutes to
produce this approach sequence, which has been compiled into a movie. At
the start of the movie, the MESSENGER spacecraft is about 630,000
kilometers (about 390,000 miles) from Mercury. The movie ends when
MESSENGER is about 34,000 kilometers (about 21,000 miles) from Mercury and
about 100 minutes before its closest approach, when it passed a mere 200
kilometers (124 miles) above Mercury's surface.
In the approach movie, Mercury appears as a sunlit crescent. During the
encounter, MESSENGER passed over the night side of the planet, experienced
its closest approach with Mercury, and then emerged into daylight. This
encounter was the first of three flybys of Mercury planned for the
MESSENGER mission.
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.
