Educators to Share MESSENGER's Second Mercury Flyby

On Monday, October 6, 2008, NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury will complete an important milestone, as the spacecraft makes its second flyby of its target planet. During the flyby, MESSENGER will swoop just 200 km (125 miles) above the cratered surface of Mercury, snapping hundreds of pictures and collecting a variety of other data from the planet as it gains a critical gravity assist that keeps the probe on track to become the first spacecraft ever to orbit the innermost planet in the Solar System in 2011.

Six MESSENGER Educator Fellows, master science educators talented atspeaking to audiences of all ages and backgrounds, will observe the flyby activities at the Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and report on their experiences in real time using social networking sites on the Internet. Through the Fellows' eyes, teachers, students, and the general public around the world will be able to share the engineers' excitement as the spacecraft performs a maneuver crucial to the success of the mission, and experience the scientists' exhilaration as new science data never before seen by any human being arrives during the days following the flyby.

Join the MESSENGER Educator Fellows as they report on MESSENGER's second flyby of Mercury by navigating to the Fellows at the Flyby page at: http://btc.montana.edu/messenger/teachers/flyby.php
Follow the links therein to the individual Fellows' Facebook, Twitter, Wiki and blog pages.

The MESSENGER to Mercury mission is supported by the NASA Discovery Program under contract to the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. For more information on the
MESSENGER mission, visit http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

Geosteph and I are leaving this weekend to travel to TX for the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. It's a week-long conference for international planetary scientists and educators to present their current research and mission results. The conference consists of both talks and poster presentations on a variety of subjects. View the enitre program, which includes links to the abstracts.

On Sunday, Geosteph will help lead a workshop called Reaching the Moon for planetary scientists and educators. Then on Wednesday we'll both lead a workshop for educators called Fire and Ice about the MESSENGER mission to Mercury and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. There may still be slots available for these workshops. Click here to learn more.

On Tuesday, we will be presenting a poster on Tuesday night in the Education and Public Outreach Programs session to accompany our abstract, which is about how NASA might use Second Life for informal space science education and participatory exploration.

If we're lucky, Geosteph might tweet from the meeting so stay tuned!

How much ice might be on Mercury? Use math to find out!

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft performed its first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. In addition to mapping the entire surface of the planet, one of its goals is to shed new light on the existence of ice in the polar regions of this hot planet. Ice on Mercury? It's not as strange as it seems! Click here to learn more and to access a pdf that provides a series of space math questions (and an answer key) related to this topic. For more classroom activities related to ice in on Mercury and elsewhere in our solar system click here. For more space math problems visit http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov. A new space math problem is added every week!

Latest image from the Mercury Flyby

Craters with Dark Halos on Mercury

As MESSENGER flew by Mercury, the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) captured this view on January 14, 2008. Two of the larger craters in this image appear to have darkened crater rims and partial “halos” of dark material immediately surrounding the craters. Both craters appear to have nearly complete rims and interior terraced walls, suggesting that they formed more recently than the other nearby shallower craters of similar size. There are two possible explanations for their dark halos: (1) Darker subsurface material may have been excavated during the explosions from the asteroid or comet impacts that produced the craters. (2) Large cratering explosions may have melted a fraction of the rocky surface material involved in the explosions, splashing so-called “impact melts” across the surface; such melted rock is often darker (lower albedo) than the pre-impact target material.

For more images check out http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/view.php?gallery_id=2

Hello Mercury!!

The MESSENGER spacecraft will make its first flyby of Mercury today at 2:04:39 pm EST!! This image of Mercury was taken yesterday on January 13 when the spacecraft was at a distance of about 760,000 kilometers (470,000 miles) from Mercury. Mercury is about 4880 kilometers (about 3030 miles) in diameter, and the smallest feature visible in this image is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) across.

During the historic encounter today, extensive scientific data will be gathered. The Mercury Dual Imaging System cameras will acquire more than 1,200 images of Mercury, including images of portions of the surface never before viewed by a spacecraft. The Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer will observe Mercury's surface as well as its tenuous atmosphere. The Magnetometer will accurately measure Mercury's magnetic field, and the Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer will characterize Mercury's space environment and interactions with the solar wind. The Mercury Laser Altimeter will sense surface topography along a narrow profile. The Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer and X-Ray Spectrometer will make the first measurements of Mercury’s surface elemental composition.

MESSENGER will begin to transmit the new data to Earth once all of the scientific measurements are completed, about 22 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury. These flyby data will shed light on fundamental scientific questions related to the formation and evolution of the planet Mercury. As scientists analyze the data, the MESSENGER spacecraft will continue on its planned journey, which includes two more encounters of Mercury in October 2008 and September 2009, before entering an orbit around Mercury in March 2011.

Additional information and features from this first flyby will be available online at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby1.html, so check back frequently. Following the flyby, be sure to check for the latest released images and science results!

Mercury Here We Come!!

This Monday, January 14, 2008, the MESSENGER spacecraft will make its first flyby of Mercury! Monday's flyby, which is taking place more than three decades after the last spacecraft visit of Mercury (Mariner 10), will take MESSENGER to about 200 kilometers above Mercury's surface. To learn more about the flyby, click here. The following movie features Sean C. Solomon, Principal Investigator for the MESSENGER mission.

Tweeting from NASA's Discovery at 15 Conference

I'm at the Discovery@15 Conference in Huntsville, AL. From the NASA Discovery website:

In space exploration, the possibilities for discovery are without limits. Even with the vast amount of knowledge gained since exploration of our solar system began, there are still more questions than answers.

NASA's Discovery Program gives scientists the opportunity to dig deep into their imaginations and find innovative ways to unlock the mysteries of the solar system. It represents a breakthrough in the way NASA explores space, with lower-cost, highly focused planetary science investigations designed to enhance our understanding of the solar system.

All completed Discovery missions have achieved ground-breaking science within strict cost and schedule limitations, each taking a unique approach to space exploration.

Reaching into the unknown, doing what's never been done before, and driving new technology innovations that may also improve life on Earth - this is NASA's Discovery Program.

I'll be adding my twitter comments throughout the meeting

is now in work mode tweeting from the Discover @ 15 meeting http://discovery.nasa.gov/Discovery15/

just announced that all presentations will be video taped and podcast on the website http://discovery.nasa.gov/D... eventually!

First up Bob Farquhar who worked on 3 Discovery missions including NEAR, Contour and MESSENGER http://tinyurl.com/26aqrn

or more info about the Discovery missions check out http://discovery.nasa.gov/ ... I'm the education and out reach lead for MESSENGER

more on Bob Farquhar http://www.jamesoberg.com/eros.html




Now Discovery Sample return missions: 1st up Stardust..it flew through the tail of a comet http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov

read about aerogel: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerogel.html 99.8% air used to collect comet tail dust

If you want to find comet dust in aerogel check out Stardust at home http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

30,000 volunteers are already participating in Stardust @ home stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ perk-you get to name the grains you find

Next up the Genesis mission that returned samples of the solar wind http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov

The speaker for Genesis is Don Burnett http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/people/index.html

Genesis sampled high speed, low speed and Coronal Mass Ejections see mission gallery http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/gallery.html

Don is discussing some of the challenges related to the Genesis hard landing http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/genesis/field.cfm

amazing results are coming from research on the Genesis solar wind samples http://tinyurl.com/yyphws

Next up-- Technology Innovation thru the Discovery Missions--enabling technologies in a cost-capped program

Bill Borucki is talking about Kepler http://kepler.nasa.gov/ the mission to search for habitable planets outside of the Solar System

Kepler uses 42 CCDs covered in sapphire http://kepler.nasa.gov/sci/design/spacecraft.html

"How can you quantify science? Its of infinite value" Bill Bourcki when asked quantify science value when Kepler was faced w/ budget cuts

Next up MESSENGER "How can you not like the planet Mercury?" MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon

The challenges to a Mercury orbiter....Mercury is very close to the sun...only spacecraft to visit Mercury is Mariner 10 in 1974- a flyby

MESSENGER website http://MESSENGER.jhuapl.edu

Technology infusion for MESSENGER-46% of the mass of the spacecraft is fuel..needed to integrate structure and propulsion system.

....including specially designed tank on MESSENGER..total of 17 thrusters-given 1 Earth, 2 Venus and 3 Mercury flybys before orbit insertion

The sun is 11 times brighter at Mercury than earth...lead to ceramic cloth sunshade..behind the sunshade MESSENGER is room temperature

don't forget first Mercury flyby is Jan 14 2008 the first spacecraft results from Mercury in more than 32 years

The Dawn Mission technology infusion is Ion Propulsion-learn more at http://tinyurl.com/28zsnf

Dawn is scheduled to launch Sept 26th...it will visit two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

now Discovery "Missions of Opportunity

The Discovery program supports international cooperation through Missions of Opportunity with international space agencies

ASPERA-3 is a suite of instruments on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft http://www.aspera-3.org/

Moon Mineralogy Mapper will fly on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft-- India' s first mission to moon http://moonmineralogymapper.jpl.nasa.gov

This official launch date of Chandyayann-1 is April 2008 http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm

M-cubed is a spectrometer with 260 spectral channels and 70 m resolution. So we will have high resolution maps of the elements on the moon

MESSENGER at the National Air and Space Museum

As part of the Venus 2 flyby activities a 1:5 scale model of the MESSENGER spacecraft built by carpenters at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., was hung in the Mercury exhibit in the Exploring the Planets Gallery of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C.

Artisans Ron Prietz, Sr., Bill Kulp, and Bob Harter, from APL's Technical Services Department-along with supervisor Ted Hartka-were there to see their handiwork displayed. Several members of the MESSENGER science and engineering teams were also in attendance, including Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, from the Carnegie Institution of
Washington, and Project Scientist Ralph McNutt, Mission Operations Manager Andy Calloway, and Missions Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan, all from APL.

NASM's Exploring the Planets Gallery was opened in 1979 to highlight the history and achievements of planetary exploration, both by Earth-based observations and by spacecraft. This upgrade to the Mercury exhibit is part of MESSENGER's Education and
Public Outreach effort and is being led by Tom Watters, a senior scientist at NASM and a MESSENGER Participating Scientist. MESSENGER Co-Investigator Mark Robinson, at Arizona State University, made available for the exhibit scores of Mercury
photographs from Mariner 10.

"This is a work in progress, but especially if you have not visited the museum for a while, it is worth a stop if you are in Washington," says McNutt. "As the MESSENGER mission progresses, the exhibit will be upgraded to reflect the mission and new Mercury results; so watch this space."

MESSENGER Science Team Meeting

I'm at the MESSENGER science team meeting in Washington, DC. Tomorrow is my Education and Outreach update presentation...and today I'm catching up on the results of the MESSENGER Venus 2 Flyby. I decided to use my Twitter account (twitter.com/geosteph) to mini-blog on the meeting...posting some information about the instruments, with links embedded in the tweets.

Is this education and outreach?