The true X Factor
May 11th 2011 00:30
Category: Planets
A cluster of small solid objects impacting near the same area of Mercury’s surface marking what seems to be a letter X
The Mercury Messenger probe was a great success a lot of work and planning went into make the mission to Mercury possible.
It is not the first time we have been to Mercury. The Messenger was
launched back in 2004. Why has it taken so long to reach Mercury?
NASA has refined mission parameters to increase research by spreading its costs to include gathering more information per mission. The Messenger probe has gathered information on more than just Mercury.
Messenger gathered data on Earth and Venus while in transit to Mercury using the gravity of Venus to gather momentum. During the 1960s space probes were sent to individual planets.
With new technology and better space craft design NASA has made substantial gains in space research by incorporating multiple smaller mission with just one probe.
CURRENT MOON
Past missions to Mercury gave us the first close up images Mercury.
Looking at past images of Mercury you would think we were looking at images of the Moon.
Probes like Messenger has given us more information on Mercury’s thin atmosphere its temperature and chemical make up. Messenger is the first craft to orbit around Mercury and is now Mercury’s ‘Moon’.
New images of Mercury have reviled some interesting findings. We now have almost all of Mercury mapped, the small planet is littered by many impact crates. Recently one of Messenger’s many images reviled a large crater with many small impact craters forming what looks like the letter X. Is this the spot where the treasure is buried ?
It depends on your definition of ‘treasure’, is there treasure buried there NO. Images like these are treasures because up till now we have not been able to see such high resolution images of Mercury, but that won’t stop the conspiracy theorist working over time.
The X was most likely formed by a cluster of small solid objects impacting near the same area of Mercury’s surface. The shape or “letter’ X is purely coincidental.
If you cast you mind back some 25 years ago a somewhat controversial image of what appeared to be a face sculptured in the Martian rock face in the region known as Cydonia. The images where taken by NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft while orbiting Mars.
The image that started it all image P-17384 (35A72)
Images taken by the early Viking mission were of low quality although it was the best we had at the time. Later images taken by the high resolution cameras onboard the Mars Global Surveyor reveals the true topography as being a series of eroded high ridges.
The left image is a portion of Viking Orbiter 1 frame 070A13, the middle image is a portion of frame 22003 taken by Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) is shown normally, and the right image is the same MOC frame but with the contrast reversed (that is, light features were forced to be dark, and dark features were forced to be light) to simulate the approximate lighting conditions of the Viking image.
When Viking I took the image way back in 1976 known as P-17384 (35A72) the shadowy image gave the illusion of a face caused by imperfections in the onboard imaging camera and software used to interpret the image by extracting digital information and converting back to a visual form.
High res image taken in 1996 . Sorry I cant see a 'face'
Later images of the same region show no signs of a ‘face’ just a large eroded mesa-like landform. And I realize that I will get comments to the contrary.
Images Courtesy of NASA
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Did you happen to see my post today? Even if you aren't a big fan of classical music, I hope you'll at least follow the link and listen to "Buzzard". It really is beautiful.
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Camera Sense
True talent transcends all musical genres. A touching melody ,with a hint of Floyd Cramer perhaps.
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief