First Photo of Mercury's Other Side

It's been over 30 years since humankind has had the chance to experience good photos of Mercury. The unknown face of the planet closest to the Sun was not captured in the first Mariner mission in the mid 70's.

NASA's MESSENGER probe has already begun to complete part of its mission, by taking the photos which began transmitting from the probe overnight on Tuesday. It performed a flyby on Monday afternoon at a speed of 16,000 mph and took 1,200 photographs. The images are being very well received, project scientist Ralph L. McNutt of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory was quoted as saying "We're looking at the last terra incognita in the inner solar system...And it is beautiful." As detailed by cgull's article on the mission the real bonanza of imagery will come in 2011, when the probe finally completes the complex mission path and settles into orbit around the planet. Mercury may look very much like the Earth's moon, full of craters and without a visible atmosphere, but the MESSENGER probe will inevitably help scientists make detailed discoveries, about the mysterious planet. It is only visible for brief periods, during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk on earth. Other times it is obscured from our view by the bright solar light, baked by the Sun. The midday temperature of the surface facing the sun can reach incredible temperatures of up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit or 426 degrees Celsius, but when it faces away from the sun they can drop to -300 degrees Fahrenheit or -185 degrees Celsius.

NASA closeup image of Mercury, seen from 11,000 miles, January 14, 2008

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This image, taken with MESSENGER's narrow-angle camera lens shows many small craters, each less than a mile or 1.6 km in diameter. Dominating the image is the large double-ringed crater, known as Vivaldi, after the Italian composer, recorded in exquisite detail. Among items of interest that scientists hope to discover include details about the iron core, shadowy polar regions and the reason why it has a magnetic field, while Mars or Venus don't. Another surface feature of great interest to scientists is the Caloris basin, one of the largest known impact craters in our solar system, about 800 miles in diameter.