NASA Releases First Ever Orbit Captured Image Of Mercury

Well here is the first color photo. Same one in technicolor.

Thanks NASA

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5a984056aa56.jpg[/atsimg]

The source article on Space.com caught my attention with this headline.

Ice on Mercury? NASA Probe May Solve That Mystery and Others

"We're really seeing Mercury now with new eyes," Messenger principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, told reporters today (March 30). "As a result, an entire global perspective is unfolding, and will continue to unfold over the next few months." [New Photos of Mercury From Messenger]

The search for water ice on the blisteringly hot planet is one of the mission's driving motivations. Though Mercury's surface temperatures can top 842 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius), ice may survive on the floors of permanently shadowed polar craters.

And about 20 years ago, radar data first picked up intriguing evidence of reflective materials at Mercury's poles that might just be water ice, researchers said.

"Could ice be trapped there? The thermal models say yes, it's possible," Solomon said. "But is it water ice? There are alternative ideas."

Interesting. I did not know this about the scorching planet Mercury.

There are 31 new images released on this Space.com link.

Very good pictures and graphs.

Originally posted by EDL2011
that is not mercury
its the moon and u wanna know why
because if it was mercury they would show the whole thing u never see
a picture of venus or pluto up close like that because it cost money to send them things out into space
and i dont think they want it getting caught in its gravity and crashing on the planet it would swing right past and into the beyond
hav a look at other pictures of mercury sumthing dont seem right ?

Well not really the craft is in the planets orbit meaning its pretty close and so cant get a full image of the planet, did you know that most "full" images we have of the earth are actually a mosaic of many pictures stitched together?