I haven’t heard any comments about it yet, but they seem similar to the morphology of the craters on Ganymede (one of the moons of Jupiter):
http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/9899/ganmogac4gs.jpg

Here’s a picture of Mercury:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/EW0108829708G.4release.jpg

Now, Ganymede is rock and ice, but I’m not implying that Mercury is. But Ganymede may have a large rocky core topped by a rock-ice layer that the craters are in (although way more ice than the inner Galilean moons), and Mercury certainly has a large core (although made of iron). I’m suggesting that the central crater/ring is a seismic “bounce” in some way off the core from the impact.

On the Moon, craters that are small don’t have central peaks. As the craters get larger, they develop central peaks. For even larger craters, you can get double or more complicated central peaks and the largest have central rings. (Mercury has lots of craters with central peaks, too — I’m just suggesting that Mercury has MORE craters with central craters than it “should have” and wondering about the reason.) But the Moon also has a very small core.

Mercury’s surface is also saturated with craters, like Callisto’s — another moon of Jupiter:
http://astrored.org/astrofotos/albums/Sistema_Solar/Jupiter/callisto.jpg.html

Look how many craters are there, and most seem to have central craters! Callisto is thought to have an even larger core than Ganymede, but the saturation of large numbers of craters indicates a very OLD surface (nothing’s come by to erase the craters over the age of the Solar System.

This stuff is amazing to me . . .

BTW, for those interested, here’s a website that predicts sizes of craters on the Earth from various impacts:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

— Steve >>>>

http://www.hvcomputer.com/temp/mercury.html

In the Transmetropolitan graphic novels, it’s mentioned that Earth is powered by the energy transmitted from Mercury, which has been completely covered by solar panels.”

Don’t forget “Runaround”, one of Asimov’s robot stories.

- Jack

http://www.moostangproductions.com/temp/other.gif

My guess is that, since MESSENGER is a publicly-funded (non-classified) project, all data are in the public domain. This isn’t to say of course that you wouldn’t have to do some extensive legwork to get hold of the data, especially the non-photographic stuff. For instance, if you want to study the planet’s mass, you’ll need to get all the flight dynamics data, which would consist entirely of reams of numbers telling how the spacecraft’s velocity changed as it grazed Mercury. You also might be asked to pay for the expense of generating a copy of the data. But I’m sure that it’s there for the asking.

Average distance of Mercury from the sun = 57.9 million kilometers
Orbital period = 87.97 days
Rotation period = 58.65 days
Average orbital velocity = 4.14 million kilometers per day
Average angular velocity of sun due to rotation = 6.14 degrees per day
Average angular velocity of sun due to orbit = 4.09 degrees per day
So on average to compute the time from sunrise to sunrise on Mercury you subtract 4.09 from 6.14 getting 2.05 degrees per day or 360 degrees per 175.6 days.

But, that’s just the average. The orbit is highly elliptic.
Eccentricity of orbit = 0.206
Perihelion distance = 0.794 * 57.9 million kilometers = 46.0 million kilometers
Perihelion orbital velocity = 1.206 * 4.14 million kilometers per day = 4.99 million kilometers per day
Angular velocity of sun due to orbit at perihelion = 4.99 / 46.0 = 0.108 radians per day = 6.22 degrees per day
So at perihelion the apparent motion of the sun in the sky is 6.14 – 6.22 or -0.08 degrees per day. That’s a negative number so the sun appears to move backwards (west to east) at a very slow rate of speed, so it will appear almost stationary near perihelion, just like the animation says.

Joshua 10:13 – “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day”

This is a common occurence on Mercury, not a miracle.

(On the concept of Mercury being covered in solar panels and the energy being transmitted to Earth)

A) It’s a comic book. Suspend your disbelief.

B) Suppose, for a second, such a plan were to be considered. Could you transmit the energy via some sort of tight collimated beam (e.g. a laser or maser)? I say this not knowing anything about Mercury’s orbit relative to the Earth, but that particular problem is solvable, I think.

That guy, Monkey?

Anyone dipped into this guys work (he seems to be yelling at us in italics…and…using….a lot of …. continuous …. grammar….. techniques…..and offering us NO ANSWERS TO HIS CLAIMS, despite his caps lock syndrome).

I don’t know if this helps or hurts in answering your question:

http://btc.montana.edu/messenger/Interactives/ANIMATIONS/Day_On_Mercury/day_on_mercury_full.htm

Note how, near perihelion, the Sun’s motion appears (“is”?) retrograde in the sky, due to the speed at which Mercury is moving. (I remember reading this years ago, but this animation makes it quite clear.)

A longer description of the animation is here:

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/tools.cfm?DocID=72&Grade=6-8

I’m not sure what crater it is, or if it was even mapped by Mariner 10 back in ‘74;

From the page at the Messenger site:

This is one of a set of 68 NAC images showing landscapes near Mercury’s equator on the side of the planet never before imaged by spacecraft.

So I guess that’s a “no”.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bp0.blogger.com/_Q55l_ERG5SI/RsIwWHTgkqI/AAAAAAAAAII/Ho4cnsoWxL8/s320/coco1%255B1%255D.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gypsydoodlebug.blogspot.com/2007/08/one-word.html
http://gypsydoodlebug.blogspot.com/2007/08/one-word.html

(Or is that just another Jesus image?)

Also, what apparent motion of the sun would an observer see located on Mercury? With an orbital period of 88 days and a rotation period of two thirds of that (i.e., 59 days) I believe that means that the apparent length of the day on Mercury is about 176 days. But does the sun rise in the east like on Earth or the west? Also, with an orbital eccentricity of 21 percent I wonder if there are any retrograde motions of the sun in the Mercurian sky.

That full image of Mercury is now my wallpaper.

Now Mercury seems more like a place then ever before. The iron planet is bound to have surprises in store for us.

An image at THIS range could be confused for the lunar surface. Funny, isn’t it? From a distance, you can distinguish the two, but not up close (least, not without prior knowledge). Sort of oppisite of what you do with people.
Perhaps this could inspire a contest in the future, as more close-ups of Mercury arrive. Show images of Mercury randomly mixed with orbital images of the moon. Then, see how many can tell the two apart. Fun!

I wonder if the company Mercury knows of their namesake’s new fame (okay, it was the god they were named after. But the planet was the inspiration for the name!).

[[In the Transmetropolitan graphic novels, it’s mentioned that Earth is powered by the energy transmitted from Mercury, which has been completely covered by solar panels.]]

Except that there’s this thing called “the inverse-square law…”