- Arrival: MESSENGER Enters Mercury Orbit. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission – better known as MESSENGER – is now in orbit around the planet Mercury. After a 15-minute long propulsion system slowdown, the craft nudged itself into orbit on March 17.
It’s the first spacecraft to enter Mercury orbit.
Question: Why this planet…why now?
As far as the planets of our Solar System are concerned, Mercury is still quite the puzzle. For example, how Mercury came to lose its lighter elements and the nature of its magnetic field is still a mystery.
Also, scientists have suggested that that the deep floors and walls of craters near Mercury’s poles appear to hold frozen deposits of ice…but this has yet to be confirmed.
MESSENGER will dive into these issues, and many more.
For the next several weeks, Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) engineers in Laurel, Maryland will be focused on ensuring that MESSENGER’s systems are all working well in Mercury’s harsh – so close to the Sun — thermal environment.
APL built MESSENGER for NASA.
What’s next?
For the next few weeks, here’s the schedule:
March 23 – MESSENGER’s instruments will be turned on and checked out.
April 4 – The primary science phase of the mission will begin.
Note: The first planned image of Mercury from orbit is scheduled to be taken on March 29, 2011, 7:40 UTC, or 3:40 am EDT. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER will acquire 364 images in total before beginning to downlink the data to Earth.
“Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored,” adds MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
“For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system’s innermost planet. Mercury’s secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed,” Solomon added.
By Leonard David