I just heard from Emily at the Planetary Society Blog that due to a problem with the Ulysses solar-observing spacecraft, the downloading of images of Mercury from MESSENGER will almost certainly be delayed until tomorrow, Wednesday. They might download a single image tonight, but that’s iffy.
Emily has details, as usual.
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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 has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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January 15th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I gotta figure that’s some semi-major [Bad Word deleted by The Bad Astronomer] up on Ulysses to risk that image data. What a drag.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Don’t buy the “we had a problem with another craft” story. The real problem was that NASA’s art department hasn’t finished their fake “images of Mercury” portfolio on time, and they needed another day.
Just in case:
January 15th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The images are being sent to Industrial Light and Magic for colourization.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
The delay is because there were lots more ancient ruins on Mercury than NASA expected and they’re hustling to cover them up before the images go public.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40929
January 15th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I’m surprised Ulysses is still going. Very much like the trials and tribulations of the hero.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
There’s an image up now. See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Dammit. Broken link.
Image itself is directly at http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/208455main_messenger_mercury_lg.jpg
January 15th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Fixed link for mission page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html
January 15th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
“Whats worth having, is worth waiting for”
I have viewed the first image already with that old fashioned sense of awe that used to happen with Pioneer, Voyager, etc. etc…
It is hard to imagine a traffic jam caused by those deep space probe extraterrestrial signals looking for a parking space on a terrestrial dish. What ever happed to reservations in advance.
Thanks for the heads up on the down link status of Messenger.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Oh, Lord. There’s a vaguely hexagonal area in the upper right of that photo. See it? Hoagland will be on CtC tonight for sure.