Messenger Zeros In On Mercury

messenger.jhuapl.edu...

New Mercury photo in (false) colour!
NASA answered my question!

It's still "false colour" but it's a pretty decent stab at it. Lots of greenish blue around craters set against a pinky-browny-gray. Green could be rusty copper?

The color image was generated by combining three separate images taken through WAC filters sensitive to light in different wavelengths; filters that transmit light with wavelengths of 1000, 700, and 430 nanometers (infrared, far red, and violet, respectively) were placed in the red, green, and blue channels, respectively, to create this image. The human eye is sensitive across only the wavelength range 400 to 700 nanometers. Creating a false-color image in this way accentuates color differences on Mercury's surface that cannot be seen in the single-filter, black-and-white image released last week.

[edit on 23-1-2008 by Brock Gel]

According to a story put out by REUTERS this morning, some of the images taken by NASA's MESSENGER probe have shown a geological anomoly that they have dubbed 'The Spider' because of the way it is shaped. At the center of this geological anomoly is a 25 mile wide impact crater made by a meteor having slammed into the planet MERCURY.
NASA scientists have said that they are excited by the images and other data sent back by MESSENGER's seven instruments. They have said that the data received will force them to reconsider some of what they had origionally thought about the planets history and composition. The scientists are also saying that they are looking forward to MESSENGER's next pass at MERCURY, which is cheduled for September/October 2008.

Im very keen to see these new pictures in 2011,

this on BBC news confused me though

news.bbc.co.uk...

Messenger also made new measurements of Mercury's "atmosphere", the extremely tenuous cloud of atoms which is lifted off the surface by solar activity and micro-meteorite impacts.

I always thought that nasa were adamant that mercury never had an atmosphere! Is this just a sodium exosphere like the moon has ?

oh wait the moon doesnt have an atmosphere according to nasa!