MESSENGER’s flyby a success!

My fab friend Emily is reporting that the Venus flyby was a success for the MESSENGER probe! Yay!

While it rounded the planet the probe took lots of data, but they won’t be sent back to Earth until ~~July~~ June 7. Then the next step is the first Mercury flyby in January 2008, leading to a series of encounters that’ll settle the probe into orbit by 2011. Space exploration is hard, and takes a long time, but it’s just so cool!

More info here.

June 6th, 2007 12:40 PM by Phil Plait in Astronomy, Cool stuff, NASA | 6 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

6 Responses to “MESSENGER’s flyby a success!”

1. MattFunke Says:
June 6th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

Actually, the site you link to says that they’re going to start monitoring recorder playback tomorrow, not July 7.
2. Dom Says:
June 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

Matt: July 7th is tomorrow.

Phil: I think part of the reason space exploration is ‘so cool’ is because its hard. And you find out cool stuff.
3. Dom Says:
June 6th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

Whoops, now i feel stupid, because its june

But the BA made the mistake first!
4. Kevin Says:
June 6th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Actually Phil didn’t make a mistake. Emily’s blog says July 7th. The MESSENGER site says June 7th.

And don’t you know astronomers don’t make mistakes? They “reformulate” data.
5. icemith Says:
June 6th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Maybe June has busted out all over!

Ivan.
6. John Kemeny Says:
June 13th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Anyone know what the hangup is releasing the photos?

About Bad Astronomy

Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.

The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.

Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com




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