News About Mercury 06-SEP-08 en-us Baltimore MD (SPX) Aug 11, 2008 - Data from MESSENGER's first flyby of Mercury have been released to the public by the Planetary Data System (PDS), an organization that archives and distributes all of NASA's planetary mission data.]]> Laurel MD (SPX) Jul 07, 2008 - Scientists have argued about the origins of Mercury's smooth plains and the source of its magnetic field for more than 30 years. Now, analyses of data from the January 2008 flyby of the planet by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft have shown that volcanoes were involved in plains formation and suggest that its magnetic field is actively produced in the planet's core.]]> Tempe AZ (SPX) Jul 03, 2008 - Volcanism has played a more extensive role in shaping the surface of Mercury than scientists had thought. This result comes from multispectral imaging data gathered in January 2008 by MESSENGER, the latest spacecraft to visit the Sun's innermost planet.]]> Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 15, 2008 - New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground.]]> Champaign IL (SPX) May 08, 2008 - New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground.]]> Blacksburg VA (SPX) Mar 18, 2008 - Patterns of scalloped-edged cliffs or lobate scarps on Mercury's surface are thrust faults that are consistent with the planet shrinking and cooling with time. However, compression occurred in the planet's early history and Mariner 10 images revealed decades ago that lobate scarps are among the youngest' features on Mercury.]]> Laurel MD (SPX) Mar 04, 2008 - As MESSENGER sped by Mercury on January 14, 2008, the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) captured this image, which includes the edge of the planet against the blackness of space. Much of the foreground shows a portion of Caloris basin, one of the largest impact basins in the solar system. The large crater in the bottom middle of this image has a diameter of about 70 kilometers (40 miles).]]> Laurel MD (SPX) Feb 25, 2008 - As MESSENGER flew by Mercury on January 14, 2008, the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) captured this view. Two of the larger craters in this image appear to have darkened crater rims and partial "halos" of dark material immediately surrounding the craters.]]> Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 08, 2008 - Little more than three weeks after Messenger's first historic flyby of Mercury, the team this week began mapping out its trajectory and observation plans for the probe's second pass of the planet this fall. On October 6, 2008, at 4:39 a.m. EST, the spacecraft will once again fly 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface of the planet.]]> Boston MA (SPX) Feb 07, 2008 - Boston University astronomers released new images of Mercury that capture both the source regions of and, for the first time, the extraordinary length of the planet's comet-like tail. Earlier research had mapped-out Mercury's sodium gas tail to approximately 40,000 kilometers, but planetary scientists from BU's Center for Space Physics (CSP) have found that the tail can extend more than 2.5 million kilometers, or 1.5 million miles, from the planet.]]> Washington DC (SPX) Feb 01, 2008 - After a journey of more than 2 billion miles and three and a half years, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew by Mercury on Jan. 14, 2008, and it has beamed back some surprises.]]> Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Feb 01, 2008 - The planet Mercury's magnetic field appears to be strong enough to fend off the harsh solar wind from most of its surface, according to data gathered in part by a University of Michigan instrument onboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft.]]> Washington (AFP) Jan 30, 2008 - NASA on Wednesday unveiled images and data taken by the MESSENGER probe on its flight over unchartered terrain of Mercury, the solar system's smallest and closest planet to the sun.]]> ]]>