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In mere minutes, Mercury's Messenger will meet its doom - LA Times
In mere minutes, Mercury's Messenger will meet its doom
NASA's Messenger spacecraft will create a new crater when it crashes somewhere in this patch of Mercury's surface, scientists say. (NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington)
By Amina Khan contact the reporter
At around 12:26 p.m. Pacific time, the spacecraft will end its four years in orbit by crashing into the tiny planet’s surface. Scientists won't be able to immediately see its final resting place, because Messenger will crash on the far side of Mercury, with no way to phone home.
Crazy but true: MESSENGER spacecraft spots ice at Mercury's north pole
Even though the spacecraft will meet its end alone, scientists in the mission control room at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland say they will mourn the passing of the spacecraft, whose observations have significantly altered our understanding of the sun-scorched little planet.
“I think everybody has mixed feelings,” the mission’s lead scientist, Sean Solomon, a planetary scientist and director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview shortly before the crash. “Everybody is proud of the many accomplishments of the Messenger mission ... at the same time, there’s this impending sense of loss.”
In some ways, it was like losing a family member, said Solomon, who called the spacecraft an “almost animate object that has become very known and dear to us.”
Before Messenger crashes on Mercury, NASA bids spacecraft farewell
Messenger, launched in August 2004, was the first spacecraft to ever orbit Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system and the closest to the sun. Circling a planet so close to its home star is an engineering feat -- the spacecraft needed to withstand damaging solar radiation as well as resist the sun’s powerful gravitational tug. At launch, more than half of the spacecraft’s mass was taken up by fuel.
But now, with its fuel reserves finally exhausted, Messenger has no other options but to crash, scientists said.
The spacecraft has done stellar work, Solomon said. Among its many discoveries: that even though Mercury sits searingly close to the sun, it holds reserves of water ice and organic matter at its poles; that a surprising amount of light, volatile elements still remain on the planet; and that the planet has dropped a dress size or two, shrinking nearly 9 miles in diameter over the last 4 billion years or so.
“That speaks to the processes by which the building blocks of the inner planets came together to form the planets we see today,” Solomon said. “Each of the planets had an important chapter to tell us in the history [of the solar system] and the challenge is to make sense of it.”
Mercury: Tiny planet is still shrinking, surfaces wrinkles show
With Messenger’s literal deadline approaching, scientists have been trying to pull all the data that they can from the spacecraft, prioritizing certain bits over others. Messenger can only transmit so much data before it disappears behind Mercury, and so a portion of lower-priority information will inevitably go down with the spacecraft.
Meanwhile, mission officials have identified the patch of land that will likely hold the spacecraft’s final resting place. Messenger will fall toward Mercury at more than 8,700 miles per hour, and when it crashes, the impact crater it generates can be studied by future missions, Solomon said.
Follow @aminawrite for more interplanetary science news.
In mere minutes, Mercury's Messenger will meet its doom
NASA's Messenger spacecraft will create a new crater when it crashes somewhere in this patch of Mercury's surface, scientists say. (NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington)
By Amina Khan contact the reporter
At around 12:26 p.m. Pacific time, the spacecraft will end its four years in orbit by crashing into the tiny planet’s surface. Scientists won't be able to immediately see its final resting place, because Messenger will crash on the far side of Mercury, with no way to phone home.
Crazy but true: MESSENGER spacecraft spots ice at Mercury's north pole
Even though the spacecraft will meet its end alone, scientists in the mission control room at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland say they will mourn the passing of the spacecraft, whose observations have significantly altered our understanding of the sun-scorched little planet.
“I think everybody has mixed feelings,” the mission’s lead scientist, Sean Solomon, a planetary scientist and director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in an interview shortly before the crash. “Everybody is proud of the many accomplishments of the Messenger mission ... at the same time, there’s this impending sense of loss.”
In some ways, it was like losing a family member, said Solomon, who called the spacecraft an “almost animate object that has become very known and dear to us.”
Before Messenger crashes on Mercury, NASA bids spacecraft farewell
Messenger, launched in August 2004, was the first spacecraft to ever orbit Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system and the closest to the sun. Circling a planet so close to its home star is an engineering feat -- the spacecraft needed to withstand damaging solar radiation as well as resist the sun’s powerful gravitational tug. At launch, more than half of the spacecraft’s mass was taken up by fuel.
But now, with its fuel reserves finally exhausted, Messenger has no other options but to crash, scientists said.
The spacecraft has done stellar work, Solomon said. Among its many discoveries: that even though Mercury sits searingly close to the sun, it holds reserves of water ice and organic matter at its poles; that a surprising amount of light, volatile elements still remain on the planet; and that the planet has dropped a dress size or two, shrinking nearly 9 miles in diameter over the last 4 billion years or so.
“That speaks to the processes by which the building blocks of the inner planets came together to form the planets we see today,” Solomon said. “Each of the planets had an important chapter to tell us in the history [of the solar system] and the challenge is to make sense of it.”
Mercury: Tiny planet is still shrinking, surfaces wrinkles show
With Messenger’s literal deadline approaching, scientists have been trying to pull all the data that they can from the spacecraft, prioritizing certain bits over others. Messenger can only transmit so much data before it disappears behind Mercury, and so a portion of lower-priority information will inevitably go down with the spacecraft.
Meanwhile, mission officials have identified the patch of land that will likely hold the spacecraft’s final resting place. Messenger will fall toward Mercury at more than 8,700 miles per hour, and when it crashes, the impact crater it generates can be studied by future missions, Solomon said.
Follow @aminawrite for more interplanetary science news.
