Photo caption: Earth as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it flew by our planet on August 2 2005.

This post is a Dr. Jeff Speaks Out.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE and at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

Don’t let your seemingly vast experience as an inhabitant of this world fool you. It’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of self-importance. Let me explain.

You likely live in a house or apartment on a street, and in a community that’s part of some town, maybe even some major urban area. Your community is likely part of a much larger state or province of one of the nations of Earth—which are themselves nothing more than imaginary constructs of human society. Your country is also likely assigned to one of the continental masses whose sum total of land area is just 29% of the planet’s surface. You are small and the Earth is seemingly vast, as if we humans to Earth are just so many micro-organisms scurrying about each day (each rotation of Earth), and following rules of social engagement that often defy logic.

It’s a story that at a most fundamental level defines your address. It may be all the address you need to ship a package to your friend across the ocean. But it won’t cut it with the intergalactic post office. As I said, don’t let your experience and perception fool you. It’s the rest of the address of which most Earthlings are unaware. For so many reasons it’s also the most important part of the address.

This seemingly vast Earth is but a tiny planet. (By comparison, over 1,000 Earths fit inside Jupiter.) Earth is one of eight planets orbiting the Sun—a tiny star by star standards—as part of a planetary System called the Solar System. The Sun resides in the Solar Neighborhood of stars, a small smattering of stars found in the Orion Spur—a nondescript little corner of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a vast city of stars, with enough stars to give 50 to every human on Earth. Right now, you, your family, and the rest of your race are orbiting just one of those stars.

The Milky Way is one of two large galaxies in the Local Group of 25-30 galaxies. The other large one, Andromeda, is on a collision course with ours. And the cosmic debris-field that is the Local Group of galaxies resides not too far cosmically speaking from the Virgo Cluster of 1,300 to 2,000 galaxies. The Local Group and Virgo Cluster are just two of the 100 to 200 or so groups and clusters of galaxies making up the Local Supercluster of more than 50,000 galaxies. The Local Supercluster—a small supercluster—is one of MILLIONS of superclusters that are woven together to form the largest structures ever seen—Galactic Filaments. And all this comprises the Observable Universe—what we believe is a remarkably insignificant portion of the Universe that nature, by law, allows us to see. Beyond what is observable, the Universe may truly be infinite.

So using myself to summarize—

I live in a house on a street in a town in the State of Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, in the USA, in North America, on Earth, in the Solar System, in the Solar Neighborhood, in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Local Group of Galaxies, near the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, in the Local Supercluster of galaxies in the tiny corner of the Universe we like to call the Observable Universe.

That is our address. It makes the often human perception of our reality as the center of cosmic activity …. just laughable. You always know the most about your own neighborhood. But that also leads you to conclude your neighborhood is somehow important. In truth, it is only important because YOU live there. And YOU obviously think YOU are important. So please think about this … for vast numbers of humans, our perception, our daily life, is driven by self-importance, a remarkable lack of humility, ignorance of—even disinterest in—a greater context of existence which our machines of exploration have brought into crisp focus, and for many, a sense that embracing God is the righteous and comforting thing to do—but does not require taking time to look at the majesty beyond Earth. And while we burn precious, non-renewable calories watching “reality” television, following the lives of the rich and famous, acquiring lots of things, deciding which of us is better or more deserving or more moral, and buying into the distorted views of what our societies have our children embrace as heroes and role models, our world—the spaceship that affords us the view of majesty—is coming under attack.

The microbes called human kill one another because each group, each (bacterial) culture, thinks they are more important than the other. It is self-importance taken to the extreme. Their self-serving technology is modifying the environment of the planet, not only threatening their existence for generations to come (how do they do that to their children?), but puts at grave risk countless species that don’t have the gift of recognizing the majesty of the cosmos. Isn’t it ironic that the only species on Earth that does possess the gifts of intelligence and tool-making, does not collectively care about its world, and collectively squanders these gifts?

So watch the movie above, taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it flew by in 2005. Watch as the Earth recedes into the cold, black void of space. Imagine the nearly 7 billion humans scurrying around on its surface. How many of them recognize that the remarkable spaceship they are on is NOT owned by them? It never was. But because of their technology, they are now, by natural decree, stewards of this spaceship for good or ill. Do they understand their responsibilities to the spaceship, to all its occupants, and to themselves? For if this tiny blue world is laid to waste, the geologic Age of Self-Importance will be over, the rest of the Universe will surely not care … and I fear God will not come to the rescue.

A penny for your thoughts …..

Photo and movie credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington. For more information about the photo and movie visit the MESSENGER web site.

Photo Caption: Stop what you are doing for a moment, just imagine the stark contrast between the surface of this world and the vacuum of space, and click on this photo for a Zoom. Be thankful on this 40th Earth Day for the veil of atmosphere above you, slender as it may be. NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft took this image of Mercury’s northern horizon on September 29, 2009, during its third and final flyby of Mercury, as we were covering the event live via Twitter from Mission Control in Columbia, Maryland. This image captures portions of Mercury we had never before seen—it represents history in the making. I invite you to read more about this image at the MESSENGER mission gallery.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

This is crossposted at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

FLASH: We interrupt the rhythm of your daily lives to bring you news from beyond Earth, from a tiny robot determined to take the human race to an alien world. Many of you tuned in September 2009 when Blog on the Universe provided live coverage of the MESSENGER spacecraft’s flyby of Mercury, the last gravity assist needed to get the spacecraft on course for Mercury orbital insertion in March 2011. We are now less than 11 months from that historic first—a spacecraft in orbit around the mysterious inner-most planet of our Solar System. You might want to bookmark the countdown clock.

Since last September 29, 7 months of our lives have been filled with a new school year, passage of seasons, and the ebb and flow of over 200 days. Meanwhile, dutifully navigating through the harsh environment of space, our little spacecraft has been steadily gaining on its rendezvous with destiny on March 18, 2011, under the watchful eyes of its extended family back on Earth—the MESSENGER Team. For this team, those 200+ days were filled with assessing data already broadcast to Earth from MESSENGER’s 3 prior flybys of the planet, and preparing for orbital insertion and on-orbit operations.

These engineers and scientists are the current generation of explorers on the frontiers of human exploration, and ought to be held up to our children as heroes and role models in the age of high technology—and at a time when America needs to step to the plate in science and technology education if we are to compete in the 21st century (you might want to read my related essay at Huffington Post.) So meet these heroes and role models—the Core Team, the Science Team, the Instrument Team, the Engineering Team, and the Mission Operations Team. Have a conversation with your kids, or if you are a teacher, have a conversation with your class about this remarkable group of folks. And to really get up close and personal, read how cool operations engineer Ray Espiritu got from his dream in middle school to being part of the MESSENGER mission. Read highlights on the lives of other MESSENGER Team members using the button at the bottom of the Highlights Page.

So now for some really exciting news sent to the entire MESSENGER Team via email on April 18, 2010, by Eric J. Finnegan, MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer. I have provided the text of Eric’s email without modification to give you a sense of the behind-the-scenes communication and spirit of teamwork that a group of folks like you and me is undertaking on behalf of humanity. We are now fully engaged in preparations for an encounter with another world—

Public Relations

This month, preparations for orbital operations came front and center, with a press release describing the extent of preparations the team is conducting, tactfully described by our Payload Operations Manager, Alice Berman.

Navigation 

It hasn’t taken long—the navigation and guidance and control teams have almost closed the gap on Mercury. Over the last month, the predicted trajectory of the satellite has been narrowed to within 1-sigma of the target. Through careful management of the solar array positions and body orientations, the predicted trajectory of the spacecraft is now less than 10 km off the b-plane aim point and less than one minute from the target arrival time needed for Mercury Orbit Insertion. The likelihood of future trajectory correction maneuvers is rapidly diminishing!

MOI Readiness

The operations and engineering teams continue to prepare for events before, during and after the Mercury Orbit Insertion maneuver. The team is considering all possible nominal and anomalous conditions to ensure a robust execution plan, thereby ensuring a successful Mercury insertion. The next milestone for the team will be a Fault Management Review, occurring on June 2. An independent team of reviewers will look over the teams preparation plans and provide any necessary recommendations to ensure successful execution of this mission critical event.

Orbital Operations Readiness

The engineering and operations teams have completed all of the detailed table top reviews covering the necessary flight operations for each of the spacecraft subsystems. Furthermore, all of the detailed discussion meetings between the mission operations team and the instrument engineers, to review the on-board and ground command procedures for orbital operations have been conducted. These series of meeting and reviews have resulted in a number of items that will need to be worked off over the next several months as the teams work towards the fall Orbital Readiness Review.

The science planning and mission operations teams completed the most recent week-in-the-life (WITL) test activity on 24 March. A team debriefing meeting was conducted to cover the activities and lessons learned from the five week exercise. This activity required the MESSENGER team to process two consecutive weeks of orbital operations in a real-time test-as-you-fly environment. The next WITL test activity will exercise four consecutive weeks of orbital operations. The kickoff meeting for this multi-week activity is scheduled for 21 April.

This month, the instrument scientists started the final verification activities for the planning functions of the MESSENGER Scibox software. on April 5, the latest configured version of the SciBox software was released allowing instrument scientists to start evaluation of the software-generated observation plan. Presentations of these observing plans by the instrument scientists to the cognizant Science Discipline Groups will commence at the end of April. In parallel with this activity, the operations and guidance and control teams are working their way through verification of the commanding functions of the Scibox software. Over 10 weeks of the 52 week orbital schedule have been processed by the G&C team using high fidelity dynamics simulations to ensure safe execution of the auto generated command sequences. The operations team has processed 5 weeks of orbital schedules though their command verification tools and vehicle state simulations, ensuring valid execution as well as identifying a few command efficiencies. Processing of the Scibox software generated command sequences will continue until all 52 weeks of scheduled science activities have been processed through the verification tools from both teams.

As a cumulative test of orbital readiness, the operations team kicked off planning activities for a full flight execution of orbital operations, to occur this summer. Current plans are to execute 1-2 weeks of orbital operations, in a cadence and manner that will be utilized during orbit. This activity will flight verify the end-to-end operations of the MESSENGER system.

There are many activities to complete before March 18, 2011, however all members of the MESSENGER team are now engaged and are working toward successful execution of orbital operations.

—Eric J. Finnegan MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer

We wish the best to this remarkable group of folks for the continued success of MESSENGER, and stay tuned for mission updates, and extensive live coverage of MESSENGER orbital insertion. And readers, I invite you to put your thoughts to ‘paper’ with a comment below:)

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education oversees the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program and other MESSENGER education and public outreach activities, including the development of compendia of lessons on Solar System exploration and science, and programming for families at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Consider one of the Center’s programs for your community. Blog on the Universe is also one of the Center’s programs.

Photocredti: NASA

Photo Caption: Image taken September 29, 2009 by MESSENGER’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). The distance across the bottom of the image is 250 miles (410 km), which means the crater at lower left is about 80 miles (130 km) across! The crater’s appearance points to Mercury’s volcanic past—to a time when the crater was filled with lava and now only portions of the crater’s circular rim are visible. (Click on image for zoom.)

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

Remember the MESSENGER spacecraft we were all following back in September as it flew by Mercury? The little spacecraft that gave us all a scare during the September 29 flyby (hey little fella, don’t do that again) is day-by-day getting closer to orbital insertion on March 18, 2011. We’re now just 15 months away!

I promised to keep you all posted with new mission updates. My last was October 17, and there have been a bunch of things piling up to report. I could have just quietly inserted the new updates on the MESSENGER Mission Updates page here at the Blog, and snuck in a date change in the Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Box in the upper right corner above (your cue to look in upper right corner). But hey! When Time Magazine names a family member as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009 (and by the way, we were number 11) YOU’VE JUST GOT TO CELEBRATE WITH AN OFFICIAL POST!

And a BIG thanks to Dr. Harri Vanhala, (another) cool astrophysicist here at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, for feeding me all the updates information. Dr. Harri (to his fans) also manages the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program, and oversaw the development of the brand spanking new Mission Design curriculum package that will be available in Spring 2010. The package has lots of middle and high school lessons that engage students in the design process for a robotic spacecraft mission to another planet, and teachers—you’ll be able to download it lesson by lesson at no cost. Your tax dollars at work.

So I invite y’all (a shout out to my friends in Houston and Corpus Christi) to check out the MESSENGER Mission Updates page for a link to the official honor from Time Magazine, LOTS of new images of Mercury, a way cool podcast on the results of the September 29 flyby by Team Member Bob Hirshon of the American Assocation for the Advancement of Science, and a link for the NASA Teleconference which showcased the scientific findings from the flyby.

Keep Truckin’ MESSENGER. And you folks in the blogosphere—stay tuned right here.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo caption: Part of Mercury’s never before seen surface, from MESSENGER spacecraft data obtained during the first flyby on January 14, 2008. 

You want to see spectacular? Click on the photo.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Arizona State University, 2008.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

The picture above was the central image for my recent Special Post on the MESSENGER spacecraft’s September 29, 2009 flyby of Mercury. It is an incredibly compelling image, and there is a great back-story for how it was produced. In the image caption at the Special Post I had invited you to read the story, but I suspect many missed the link. So I decided it was worthy of its own post!

Digital images taken of a planet by a spacecraft obviously provide views as seen from the spacecraft’s position—which changes over time. The set of images, with views of the planet from different angles, allows a 3-dimensional digital model of the planet’s surface to be created. You can then ask a remarkable question, “If I could place a camera at a location in space over there, and at this particular time, what would I see”? It’s a remarkable question because the spacecraft’s camera was never at that location in space and time, yet the data can be reassembled into an image as seen by a ‘virtual camera’ placed there. The resulting image is very real. It is the original data reassembled.

Why would you do this? Maybe because your hypothetical location offers some unique viewing angle not seen in the original images.

Just in time for this post, HERE is the surface of Mercury pieced together from multiple images by Mariner 10 in 1974-75 and during MESSENGER’s 3 flybys, including the latest on September 29, 2009. This global map of Mercury was just released on October 2, 2009.

The image above was created by the MESSENGER Team for the Voyage National Program overseen by my Center. It is an initiative dedicated to the public understanding of Earth’s place in space—and celebrates that we can even know it. Voyage is a scale model Solar System permanently installed on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in front of the Smithsonian Museums, and the Voyage national and international programs are permanently installing replicas in communities world-wide. The goal—100 Voyage model Solar Systems installed across the planet, for the story of our existence on Earth knows no national boundaries, and is a thread that binds all humanity.

Each of the Voyage exhibition’s 13 stanchions include a central image that captures the subject of the stanchion. We wanted a new central image for the Mercury stanchion that captured MESSENGER’s monumental achievement during its first flyby on January 14, 2008. The location of the virtual camera was chosen to provide a very dramatic view of the side of Mercury never before seen by the human race until MESSENGER’s encounter. The image was also created at a point in time when the image would include—Earth. We wanted a view of home from an alien world.

Earth was not in the camera’s field-of-view when MESSENGER was taking images of the unseen side in January 2008. So we moved a virtual camera to a place in space and time where Earth would be visible among the stars, and the newly revealed surface would be seen in dramatic fashion. The virtual camera for this image is placed in low Mercury orbit, on February 3, 2008, when the Earth would have been seen as a blue star-like object above the horizon (seen on the left side of the image). It is a real image of Mercury obtained from the MESSENGER data, and Earth and the star fields are superimposed at their proper locations. By the time this ‘virtual’ image was taken, MESSENGER was long gone, departing Mercury three weeks earlier. But the images she left behind allowed us to ‘see’ what would have been a truly remarkable site.

The image above is now part of the permanent Voyage exhibitions in three communities.

You’re probably  a little curious about Voyage, and I’m very proud of it, so I thought I’d show you some photoalbums at Facebook. Here is Voyage in Kansas City, Missouri, along downtown Baltimore Avenue from the Power and Light Building to Union Station; in Houston, Texas, at Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA Johnson Space Center; and along the historic waterfront in Corpus Christi, Texas (the captions for the Corpus Christi photalbum are pretty funny—read them in order.) Voyage is also approved for installation on the State Capitol grounds in Des Moines, Iowa; in Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland; and on the campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

I will soon be doing a post on a one to 10-billion scale model Solar System—Voyage’s scale—to give you a true sense of the nature of our existence on a tiny world in a vast space. I’ll also provide you with links to lessons at grades K-2, 3-4, 5-8, and 9-12, and to an activity for families at home, so you can set up paper versions of Voyage in a local park. Students (off all ages) will be blown away.

And hey, you might think about a Voyage in YOUR community. If you want to explore the possiblity, contact me.

Flyby 3 may be over, but MESSENGER’s mission continues. Bookmark this page for MESSENGER updates. Also note you can always access this page from the Teachable Moments in the News Quick Links box in the upper right column of this Blog, which includes the date of the latest update.

Teachers—place the mission in the greater context of human exploration, and exploration of the Solar System, using this Blog’s MESSENGER Ideas for Lessons in the Classroom, and Educational Resources page.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

Photo Caption (click on image for zoom): Image taken September 29, 2009, by the MESSENGER spacecraft’s Narrow Angle Camera,15,400 km (9,600 miles) above the planet’s surface. The double-ring impact basin is approximately 100 miles (160 km) in diameter, with another large impact crater on its south-southwestern side. The image and caption was prepared by MESSENGER Educator Fellows Christina Dorr (Hilliard City School District, Hilliard, OH) and Julie Taylor (Adelanto School District, Adelanto, CA), at the MESSENGER Science Operations Center.

The September 2009 MESSENGER Special Post at Blog on the Universe, with live Web 2.0 coverage of the spacecraft’s third flyby of Mercury on September 29, generated significant interest in the NASA MESSENGER mission. Teachers and their classes were following along and posing questions to the six Voices of Mission Control via Twitter and email. I’ve created this page to provide ongoing MESSENGER mission updates through the date of orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.

Below you will find the Updates Archive. Also below are Blue Titled sections that provide an overview of the tense time in Mission Control when the signal from the spacecraft was unexpectedly lost during close approach on September 29, and a Twitter archive for the Voices of Mission Control—captured live during the flyby—so you can relive the experience.

Updates Archive

April 22, 2010: Blog on the Universe Post

Hero Engineers and Scientists Preparing for MESSENGER Spacecraft Orbit of Mercury

January 28, 2010: MESSENGER Searches for Vulcanoids

The MESSENGER spacecraft started the year 2010 by making its closest approach to the Sun on its current orbit on January 18. At that time, MESSENGER was just 0.308 AU (astronomical units; the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, which is about 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles) from the Sun. The mission team used the opportunity to conduct a survey for vulcanoids—asteroid-like objects that could possibly exist between the Sun and the orbit of Mercury—by taking four sets of 64 long-exposure images by the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument. No vulcanoids have been found yet, but the analysis of the new images continues.

Learn more about the MDIS instrument.

Read an archived NASA news story from 2002 discussing the hunt for vulcanoids.

New image releases on the MESSENGER Web site during January:

Honoring Haitian Painter Benoit and American Photographer Lange
Extensive smooth Plains on Mercury

December 23, 2009: MESSENGER Highlights in 2009

The MESSENGER team looks back on 2009 this week by releasing a collage of images highlighting some of the most interesting new findings about Mercury during the last 12 months. While celebrating the achievements of the past year ­ including the final flyby of Mercury on September 29 ­ the team is also looking ahead to 2010. Even though there is no planetary flyby in store next year, the MESSENGER team will be busy analyzing previously collected data and preparing for the orbital phase of the mission to begin in 2011. Many thanks to the MESSENGER team for a memorable year, and best of luck for 2010!

See the 2009 Collage of Images

December 18, 2009: New Global Mosaic of Mercury

During the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California, the MESSENGER science team released a new global mosaic of Mercury to the public. The new map, created by the MESSENGER team in collaboration with cartographic experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, incorporates images from MESSENGER’s three flybys of the planet, as well as Mariner 10′s observations from the 1970s. Combined, the images cover 97.72% of the surface area of Mercury. The new map will be a valuable tool in planning observations for the orbital phase of the mission, starting in March 2011, since it allows the science team to pinpoint features on the surface for closer study.

For more information on the creation of the new global map of Mercury, see THIS MESSENGER press release.

The map is available for download on the USGS Map-a-Planet web site:  or at the MESSENGER Web site.

December 10, 2009

Two new images released

The Sun Sets on Rembrandt

A Southern Horizon as Seen during Mercury Flyby 3

November 25, 2009: Final Deep Space Maneuver

MESSENGER performed its fifth and final deep-space maneuver on Tuesday. The spacecraft fired its engine for 3.3 minutes to achieve the velocity change necessary to place it on course to go into orbit around Mercury in March 2011. At the time of the maneuver, MESSENGER was 143 million miles (230 million km) from the Earth, on the far side of the Sun. At this distance, it takes 12 minutes and 49 seconds for the radio signals to reach ground control. Data sent back from the spacecraft indicates the maneuver was performed extremely accurately, and the spacecraft is on target to its meeting with Mercury in 16 months. To see where MESSENGER is right now, visit this LINK.

New image released this week: A Long Scarp Revisited

November 17, 2009: Time Magazine—MESSENGER One of 50 Best Inventions of 2009

Time magazine has named the MESSENGER spacecraft as one of the best 50 inventions of 2009. The magazine credits the technical challenges facing a spacecraft flying to a planet so close to the Sun as the reason for the recognition, and the results from the third flyby of Mercury in September certainly demonstrate how well the spacecraft is operating in the hazardous environment.

Read the MESSENGER press release about the award.

Here is Time Magazine’s list of best inventions of 2009 (with MESSENGER at #11).

A new image taken during the flyby was released today: a comparison between a true color image and an enhanced color image of the planet. Enhanced color images allow scientists to examine different terrains better and in this manner help uncover the geologic history of the planet.

November 3, 2009: NASA Media Teleconference on MESSENGER Findings

from Third Flyby, and New Images

MESSENGER mission team held a NASA media teleconference today to discuss scientific findings from the spacecraft¹s third and final flyby of Mercury on September 29. Among the topics covered were: images of previously unseen parts of the planet; a region with a bright area surrounding an irregular depression, suspected to be volcanic in origin; a double-ring impact basin that may contain the youngest volcanic material on Mercury found so far; measurements of how Mercury¹s very thin atmosphere, called the exosphere, varies with the planet’s distance from the Sun; and information on the abundances of iron and titanium in Mercury’s surface materials.

Here is the press release about the new science results.

Images and other multimedia resources from the teleconference are available HERE.

New Mercury images from the teleconference:

A Color View of the Solar System’s Innermost Planet

Mercury Flyby 3 Reveals a Highly Diminished Sodium Tail

Evidence of Volcanic Activity on Mercury

Mercury’s Surface Has More Iron + Titanium Than Previously Thought

October 30, 2009: Readying for Solar Conjunction, and New Images

of Mercury from a Distance

MESSENGER is rapidly moving away from Mercury after its third flyby of the planet a month ago. It is now preparing for an upcoming solar conjunction on November 3-17, when the spacecraft will be on the other side of the Sun as seen from the Earth, and no communications with ground control are possible. To minimize the chances of any mishaps during this time, all instruments have been turned off except for the gamma-ray spectrometer, which has to stay in its maintenance mode to keep its cooler at a safe temperature. Before being turned off, MESSENGER¹s dual imaging camera snapped pictures of Mercury from a distance; the images were released on the MESSENGER Web site this week.

LINK: Mercury from Nearly Two Million Miles

October 20, 2009: NEW Podcast; Results of Third Flyby Presented at 2009 Geological Society of America Meeting

During MESSENGER’s third flyby of Mercury, Bob Hirshon (American Association for the Advancement of Science) recorded reports on the events at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. These reports include interviews with the MESSENGER team during the flyby, live reaction to the unexpected loss of the spacecraft’s signal prior to the closest approach, and discussion of the situation once the signal was restored and the spacecraft had been confirmed to be operating nominally. You can now experience the nail-biting moments as if you were right there at the Mission Operations Center by downloading Bob’s recording as a podcast available at the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcasts Web site, one of the programs celebrating the International Year of Astronomy.

MESSENGER science team members are presenting the first results from the spacecraft’s third flyby of Mercury at the 2009 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Some of the topics discussed in the meeting are featured in new image releases on the MESSENGER web site and include tectonic activity of impact basins, as shown in the image: The Rim of Rembrandt and Neighboring Scarps and volcanism, as showcased by large expanses of smooth plains and craters flooded with lava in the image Flooding Mercury’s Surface. The full list of papers presented at the meeting can be found HERE.

Other new image releases at the MESSENGER web site include a high-resolution mosaic of Mercury taken during the spacecraft’s approach of the planet on September 29: Approach Mosaic from Mercury Flyby 3 and a picture showcasing Mercury¹s complex geologic history: Mercury’s Geology: A Story with Many Chapters.

October 17, 2009: MESSENGER’s October 21 Trajectory Correction Canceled

To be able to go into orbit around Mercury in 2011, MESSENGER is taking a complicated route to its target planet. In addition to six planetary flybys, the spacecraft also performs five deep space maneuvers, during which it fires the main engines to change its orbit around the Sun. In between these main events, smaller trajectory correction maneuvers can be performed to tweak the spacecraft’s path slightly as necessary to make sure the spacecraft remains on target. The next trajectory correction maneuver was scheduled to take place on October 21, but because MESSENGER performed its third flyby of Mercury so accurately, the mission team has decided that no adjustment to the spacecraft’s trajectory is needed before the mission’s final deep space maneuver on November 24, 2009. Here’s a Diagram that provides an understanding of MESSENGER’s roller-coaster journey to Mercury.

October 16, 2009: New images from MESSENGER’s September 29 flyby released by APL (release date: October 7 through 14, 2009.)

Tip of the Crescent

Look Back – Look Ahead

Evidence of Volcanism on Mercury: It’s the Pits

It’s Just a Phase that Mercury’s Going Through

October 9, 2009: Peter Bedini, the MESSENGER Project MANAGER at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, sent out a personal message to the entire MESSENGER Team. I wanted to share it with all of you, and got Peter’s permission:

Before too much time passes, I want to offer the entire MESSENGER team sincerest thanks for the substantial amount of hard work that went into the preparations for last week’s encounter with Mercury. That flyby completes a set of three such encounters with our target planet, and will be the last opportunity to study Mercury close-up until we meet it again for orbit insertion in a year and a half.

As you all are well aware, the gravity assist was extremely accurate once again, with the spacecraft this time passing within 1.25 miles of the targeted aim-point, and within 1200 feet or so of the desired altitude. MESSENGER passed within 142 miles of the planet’s surface at a relative speed of about 12,000 mph and altered its trajectory as needed to enter orbit about Mercury in March 2011. Although the science observation campaign was interrupted by a nervous fault protection system, all subsystems behaved nominally throughout the encounter, and the spacecraft remains safe and healthy.

The science data are being analyzed and will be studied for some time, but already it is known that the observations made on approach were highly successful. Measurements of the exosphere and magnetosphere will add to our understanding of those aspects of Mercury, and our camera system imaged about 6% of the surface never before revealed.

I learned this morning that one of our science products has grabbed the attention of those at the very highest levels of our government. Members of our team created a stereo mosaic of a portion of Mercury by overlaying images taken during the second encounter last year with those taken from a slightly different angle last week. When viewed through 3-D glasses, the stereo effect greatly enhances the topography of the planet. A copy of this 3-D mosaic was brought by our Program Scientist, Marilyn Lindstrom, to NASA HQ last week, and yesterday afternoon the NASA Administrator himself presented it – along with pairs of 3-D glasses – to representatives of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It is a testament to the high quality of the work each of you has contributed to MESSENGER that the head of NASA saw fit to use this product to represent the great things that NASA can do. There is much yet to do to prepare properly for the prime phase of the mission, but please take time to remind yourselves that what you’re doing is really cool, that you’re doing it extremely well, and that we’re not the only ones who think so.

Sincerely, Peter

Peter D. Bedini, MESSENGER Project Manager

Peter also wanted me to pass along an October 8, 2009 Washington Post article about a Star Party on the White House lawn. You might recognize the photo of Mercury on one of the flags.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/07/on_the_south_lawn_white_house.html

October 7, 2009:

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features a MESSENGER third flyby image of a Double Ringed Basin on Mercury. APOD (as it’s called by its fans) always includes a description of the daily image with links to other websites for a deeper look at the subject matter. The MESSENGER image description includes links for other related geologic features and a relevant movie on volcanic flow.

IMPORTANT POINT: the APOD description can be interpreted to imply that the inner ring may have been caused by a volcanic flow as a subsequent event unrelated to the initial impact. The expert opinions, however, are that the inner ring formed at the same time as the outer ring.

The link: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

October 6, 2009: Some of the images taken by MESSENGER during its third flyby of Mercury are of the same areas photographed during the second flyby, but viewed from a slightly different angle. Combining the two sets of images creates a stereo effect that helps visualize the topography of the surface. E.g., viewing the stereo image of a portion of the 715 km (444 mile) wide Rembrandt basin through 3D glasses makes the effects of tectonism, impact cratering, and volcanism inside the basin more apparent.

I don’t know how many folks have a cheapy cardboard pair of 3D glasses with the left eye covered with red plastic and the right eye covered with blue, but that’s what you need to see the effect. At the science team briefing at the Science Operations Center we all got a pair of these glasses, and I just looked at the image with them on (link below). Very cool!!  By the way, at the meeting we all had our glasses on, and a famous Smithsonian geologist walked into the room late and said “Hey this looks like some bad horror film.” From the audience someone shouted “Hey! You’re looking at the audience!”

The link to the image:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=347

October 5, 2009: One of the big surprises from MESSENGER¹s three flybys of Mercury has been the revelation of the planet¹s complicated geologic history. A great example is the two neighboring craters visible in a new image taken during last week¹s flyby. The inside of one of the craters has a complex structure, while the other appears to have been filled nearly to its rim with smooth, probably volcanic, material. A complicated geologic past is needed to explain how two craters of roughly the same size and right next to each other look so different.

The link to the image:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=346

October 2, 2009: One of the most important science goals of MESSENGER¹s third flyby of Mercury was to obtain images of the previously unseen parts of the surface. The newly imaged terrain bridges the gap between areas imaged during the previous flybys by MESSENGER in 2008 and Mariner 10 in 1974-75. We now have almost complete coverage of the surface, and only the polar regions remain unseen. The global map of Mercury will be valuable in planning MESSENGER¹s orbital operations, which will begin in 18 months.

Here’s the link to the newly released global map of Mercury:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=345

Other images release October 2:

Young and Wrinkled

A Terminator Shot

Capturing Mercury through MESSENGER’s Dual Cameras

October 2, 2009: Science in Pictures at the New York Times (pictures 1 and 2). Picture 2 was selected by MESSENGER Fellows Christina Dorr and Julie Taylor for release to the public, and they wrote the draft caption.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/02/science/100209_Sciencepix_index.html

October 1, 2009: A Paw Print on Mercury!

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=341

Other images released October 1:

Crater Ejecta and Chains of Secondary Impacts

Seeing Double?

Evening Shadows

A Bright Spot in the Latest Imaging

September 30, 2009: During flyby 3, MESSENGER imaged another 5% of Mercury’s surface that has never been seen. MESSENGER’s three flybys, and the flybys of Mariner 10 in 1974-75. have now imaged 90% of the planet. Only the polar regions remain to be revealed. The newly imaged portion of Mercury on September 29, 2009:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=334

Other images released September 30:

A Newly Pictured Pit-Floor Crater

A Newly Imaged Basin

A High-resolution Look over Mercury’s Northern Horizon

MESSENGER Sees the Previously Unseen!

September 23 – October 1 2009: Select Media Coverage of Flyby 3

msnbc.com, Oct 1, Mercury’s bright spot gets an up-close photo

Nature.com, Oct 1, Mercury MESSENGER, fault foxes final fly-by

Baltimore Sun, Oct 1, Mercury probe shuts down instruments during flyby

Universe Today, Oct 1, More New Looks at Mercury from MESSENGER

Universe Today, Sept 30, MESSENGER Went into Safe Mode Approaching Mercury

The New York Times, Sept 28, MESSENGER Spacecraft to Photograph Mercury

Science Daily, Sept 28, MESSENGER Spacecraft Prepares For Final Pass by Mercury

Bad Astronomy Blog at Discover, Sept 27, MESSENGER: Three days out from Mercury

USA Today, Sept 25, Mercury ready for a rare close-up

UPI,Sept 24, NASA Mercury probe to scan mineral ores

NASA Press Release, September 23, 2009, MESSENGER Spacecraft Prepares For Final Pass By Mercury

Nail Biting in the Mission Operations Center

MESSENGER Flyby 3 Summary

The MESSENGER spacecraft’s 3rd flyby of Mercury took place 5:55 pm EDT, September 29, 2009, passing within 142 miles of the surface. The gravitational assist from Mercurysuccessfully modified the spacecraft’s trajectory to enable orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.

14 minutes before Close Approach, the spacecraft passed onto the dark side of Mercury, and switched from solar power to onboard batteries. The event was incorrectly interpreted as a problem by the spacecraft’s autonomous system that checks the health of all spacecraft systems 50 times each second. At 6 minutes before close approach, the autonomous system placed the spacecraft into Safe Mode, which stowed the science instrument payload, and shut down science operations already in progress. By then, nearly 50% of the science to be conducted 4 days to either side of close approach had been achieved.

Back on Earth, some 70 million miles away, all that was known was signal was inexplicably lost 6 minutes before close approach, and 12 minutes later the spacecraft was to go behind Mercury realtive to Earth, causing a forced communications blackout for 51 minutes. As one mission controller told me in the hallway, “we all got a pit in our stomachs.”

Signal was reacquired after the end of the blackout period, but controllers determined that the spacecraft was in safe mode, rather than normal mode. Into the evening and early morning hours at the Mission Operations Center, in Columbia, Maryland, what had happened near close approach began to unfold.

By mid-day September 30, mission controllers knew that the autonomous system safed the spacecraft as a result of the switch to battery power, they put the spacecraft back into normal mode, and all the data acquired before close approach was received on Earth. Planetary scientists at the Science Operations Center began looking at the data, and the MESSENGER Fellows were selecting and captioning images for release later that day (see September 30 update in the Updates Archive below.)

Twitter Archive of Flyby 3, September 29, 2009: Relive the Experience!

MESSENGER’s third flyby of Mercury was covered live via Web 2.0 from mission control at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland. SixVoices of Mission Control—MESSENGER Educator Fellows and MESSENGER Education Team members—provided the play-by-play and answered questions via Twitter for the Sept 29 flyby and the two days that followed when the preliminary science results were being presented. With the Twitter archives below, you can relive the experience—including the dramatic loss of signal 6 minutes before close approach, and 12 minutes before the start of the 51 minute communications blackout.

The Twitter archives below reflect the Schedule of Live Events September 28 through October 1, 2009 :

The Voice of the MESSENGER Spacecraft (Heather Weir)

http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-messenger2011/

The MESSENGER Fellows

Gene Gordon http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-porchdragon/

Christina Dorr http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-chd2009/

Annette Iwamoto http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-aniwam/

Sally Jensen  http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-cosmicfrog/

Julie Taylor http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-julietaylorca/

Jeff Goldstein, (doctorjeff) http://blogontheuniverse.org/M3-twitter-archive-doctorjeff/

Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Given the BotU Special Post for the MESSENGER Flyby, I thought this would be a great supplemental post.

Some Cool Background

Imagine you’re looking at a bug flying around an outdoor light bulb at night. Let’s say you’re looking at it from a distance which is always greater than the distance the bug is from the bulb. Wow. It’s a really interesting bug you’ve never seen before, and you want to share the experience with a friend, or (in my case) your son or daughter. I might say “Hey Jordi! Check out this really cool bug!” He’d say, “Daddy, where??” Ok, now I’ve got to tell him where to look. What would you say? How about: “over there, near that light bulb.”

Well this is EXACTLY the situation with the planet Mercury for earthbound observers. Mercury is orbiting the Sun and we’re looking at it from Earth, which is at a greater distance from the Sun than Mercury is from the Sun.

So if you want to see Mercury in your sky, you need to look … near the Sun. Anybody see a problem with that? The Sun is a pretty high wattage light bulb, and if it’s up in the sky, you’re not going to see Mercury or the stars for that matter. They’re up there with the Sun but their light is absolutely swamped by the sunlight illuminating our atmosphere.

Just so you know, the Sun light bulb is General Electric model #big01bertha, and its wattage is 383,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts. It is also guaranteed for another nearly 5 billion years of operation. Handle with care.

Now back to the bug. So Jordi takes a look in the direction of the light bulb, and he sees the bug whenever it’s off to the side of the bulb. When the bug is in front of the bulb, it’s lost in the bulb’s light.

So that’s the secret to seeing Mercury in the sky! There are times when Mercury is far enough to the side of the Sun, so that it can be seen above the horizon—because the pesky Sun is below the horizon. The positions of Mercury and Earth in their orbits have to be just right so that we can see Mercury either BEFORE sunrise or AFTER sunset.

Now for the way cool part. It’s that time right now! While MESSENGER is flying by Mercury you can see the planet in the east before dawn!

How To See Mercury Before Sunrise September 29 Through October 1

The Graphic above is taken from This Week’s Planet Roundup in Alan MacRobert’s column This Week’s Sky at a Glance, at Sky & Telescope magazine. I just spoke to Alan to get some pointers for Mercury viewing to pass on to you. Here’s the poop:

• The graphic shows the situation at 40 degrees north latitude but it’s pretty much the same for the entire continental US (e.g., Bangor, Maine: 44 degrees; Miami, Florida: 25 degrees), and for the same latitudes around the globe.

• You need to look about 45 minutes before your local sunrise. Any closer to sunrise and the sky will already be too bright. So you need to get your local sunrise time. How? You can use the Sky & Telescope online Almanac or see if it is provided in your local paper.

• You need to look due east. How can you tell if you don’t know which way to look? Due east will be the brightest area of the sky on the eastern horizon, because Big Bertha (the Sun) is about to rise over there. If you’re one of those folks that likes to plan in advance, so you need to know the direction of “due east” right now, well here’s a plan. Go to Google maps, put in your address, or the address of the site from where you’ll be looking, select “Satellite” view, zoom in until you see a recognizable building or landmark, and note that NORTH is up on the map.

• Mercury will be low in the sky, only about 10 degrees above the horizon, so you need to view from a spot where due east is unobstructed by trees and buildings.

• Venus is going to really help you. It will be a bright star-like object, but it won’t be twinkling like the stars (planets don’t). You can see in the graphic at the top of the page that Mercury will be below Venus. Mercury will be far dimmer than Venus, but can be seen with the unaided eye. BINOCULARS will help.

When you look at Mercury, you might recal that YOU’RE LOOKING AT THE MESSENGER SPACECRAFT TOO. You’re looking at history, only from really really far away. So what—it’s still history!

Quick Navigation for this BotU Special Post

Click on Main Page to Ensure You’re at Special Post, not Blog Home Page

Sub-pages:

1. Schedule for MESSENGER Flyby Events and Web 2.0 Live Coverage

2. Ideas for Lessons in the Classroom, and Educational Resources

for leveraging the live events into a broader science education experience

3. The Mission Scientists, the Voices of Mission Control, and their Links

4. How to Participate—It’s Easy even if you have Twitter & Facebook blocked

5. Witness History: See Mercury Before Sunrise! Sept 29-Oct 1, 2009

Photo caption: Part of Mercury’s never before seen surface, from MESSENGER spacecraft data obtained during the first flyby on January 14, 2008. Read the story behind this image. You want to see spectacular? Click on the image.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Arizona State University, 2008.

Every so often an upcoming event is compelling enough for me to put up a dedicated Special Post at Blog on the Universe. A good example is the Apollo 11 40th anniversary. Given my involvement for the last 10 years with the MESSENGER mission, I decided the upcoming encounter deserved a Special Post. The goal is to help facilitate public engagement with the event, and point followers of this Blog to the official web sites and relevant resources. I have also provided my own thoughts on MESSENGER. This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

It is a historic mission to another world. It marks a dramatic end to the human race’s initial reconnaissance of the eight planets of our Solar System, and the beginning of detailed study of Mercury.

On September 29, 2009, at 5:55 pm EDT, the MESSENGER spacecraft will conduct the last of three flybys of the planet. Each flyby is gravitationally modifying the spacecraft’s orbit around the Sun to ready it for orbital insertion around Mercury on March 18, 2011. On September 29 through October 1, live Web 2.0 coverage from mission control at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland, will allow teachers, their students, and the public to experience this mission milestone, and through social networks … ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE in this great adventure. There will be 7 Voices of Mission Control—MESSENGER Educator Fellows and MESSENGER Education Team members—covering the flyby in real time on Twitter and Facebook. They will be able to interact with all of you through engaging conversations, and will answer your questions. Four MESSENGER Mission Scientists will be teaming with the Voices of Mission Control throughout the live coverage. Our goal is to capture the experiences and excitement of the events as they unfold, and to tell this very human story of exploration. We want to help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, and promote scientists and engineers as heroes and role models to our children. We want to help teachers engage their students with a behind-the-scenes look at REAL science and engineering, and in this very moment of history.

Inspire … Then Educate: A Broader Commitment to Education

At this Special Post, I’ve also put together a sub-page that can serve as a one-stop-shop for information on MESSENGER and the science objectives for the flyby, and lists of activities, lessons, and educational resources. It’s meant to help you place the live coverage within a broader, richer science education experience that grows from National Science Education Standards, and offers deep curricular connections in the earth and space sciences. The idea is to inspire …then educate. The historic event provides the inspiration, and the resources leverage discussions on the nature of exploration, the nature of the Solar System, and MESSENGER and its mission at Mercury. Isn’t this precisely the curricular landscape in which MESSENGER resides?

The Mission

On August 3, 2004, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury, only the second mission to the planet. Unlike its predecessor Mariner 10—which in 1974 and 1975 only flew by Mercury—MESSENGER will enter orbit in 2011 and begin a full year of observations. Mariner 10 only revealed half the planet to us. MESSENGER’s first flyby on January 14, 2008 revealed the side of the world we had never seen. MESSENGER is changing our view of Mercury—and how our Solar System was born.

There is a wealth of information on the scientific motivation for the mission, the mission design, the suite of instruments, the mission timeline, and a FAQ, at MESSENGER’s main Johns Hopkins University Site, and the NASA MESSENGER site.

The Team

MESSENGER is an emissary of the human race to an alien world. It is a NASA Discovery Mission headed by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) and managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). But MESSENGER was made possible by ordinary people just like you and me who were children once that dared to dream. It was taken from idea to reality by a remarkable, inter-organizational team headed by Sean Solomon, Director of CIW’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, and P.D. Bedini as Project Manager at APL. Sub-teams for engineering, mission operations, science, and the suite of instruments aboard the spacecraft, provide areas of concentration that make a space flight mission happen. There is also a dedicated team of organizations conducting education and public outreach (E/PO) activities in support of the mission—so that the human race can go along for the ride. The E/PO team is head by Julie Edmonds, Co-Director of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education (CASE).

NCESSE and the Fellows

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) is one of the MESSENGER E/PO team organizations. We oversee the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program where we recruit, train, and support a corps of 30 of the best science educators in the nation—the MESSENGER Fellows—which in turn trains 3,000 teachers a year on conceptually powerful grade K-12 compendia of lessons—the MESSENGER Education Modules—addressing Solar System science and engineering. As of September 18, 2009, 14,028 grade K-12 teachers have been trained at 609 workshops by the Fellows. It is a remarkable achievement.

I am Center Director for NCESSE, and also direct our E/PO efforts for MESSENGER. NCESSE’s Dr. Harri Vanhala superbly manages the Fellowship Program and NCESSE’s development of new grade 5-12 lessons for the MESSENGER Education Modules.

Live Web 2.0 Coverage September 29 through October 1, 2009

On September 29, starting at 5:00 pm, about an hour before the Mercury encounter, 7 MESSENGER Fellows and E/PO Team members, including myself, will be covering the flight live on Twitter and Facebook. Collectively this group will serve as Voices of Mission Control at the Applied Physics Lab. On September 30 and October 1 we will be working with 4 MESSENGER Mission Scientists, reporting to you live the preliminary results from the data streaming to Earth.

You are invited to be part of the adventure.

… and spread the word to teachers!

Links to Important Sub-pages of this Post

Schedule for M3 (MESSENGER Flyby #3) Events and Web 2.0 Live Coverage

Ideas for Lessons in the Classroom, and Educational Resources

for leveraging the live events into a broader science education experience

The Mission Scientists, the Voices of Mission Control, and the Social Networking Links

How to Participate—It’s Easy even if you have Twitter & Facebook blocked