Messenger Probe's first photos of Mercury

[YosemiteSam]

To a lot of you; it will just look like the moon, but I know there are some space junkies like me out there that would want to check it out anyway.

Space.com Gallery

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

Stuff like this blows my mind. When you stop and think about the distances and sizes involved.

Looking at those massive craters spanning a good portion of the planet, then realizing the planet is over 3000 miles in diameter...

 

[Arch Stanton]

Fantastic pictures. I'm no expert on anything to do with space, but I do love to see stuff like this. Make me feel mortal.

BTW, I didn't realize 'til a few days ago that Voyager 1 was still heading on out into space and still operational. A remarkable feat of engineering.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Fantastic pictures. I'm no expert on anything to do with space, but I do love to see stuff like this. Make me feel mortal.

BTW, I didn't realize 'til a few days ago that Voyager 1 was still heading on out into space and still operational. A remarkable feat of engineering.

Voyager 1 is approximately 11 billion miles away. Just to get an idea of how far that is. If the Sun just went out (stopped giving off light), Voyager 1 wouldn't know about it until almost 16 hours later. The Sun light would cease here on Earth only eight minutes after it happen.

Light travels about 186 thousand miles per second. As noted, it would take about 16 hours at that rate of speed to reach Voyager 1.

 

[Khartun]

Voyager 1 is approximately 11 billion miles away. Just to get an idea of how far that is. If the Sun just went out (stopped giving off light), Voyager 1 wouldn't know about it until almost 16 hours later. The Sun light would cease here on Earth only eight minutes after it happen.

Light travels about 186 thousand miles per second. As noted, it would take about 16 hours at that rate of speed to reach Voyager 1.

So how long does it take to send commands to V1 and V2?

 

[YosemiteSam]

So how long does it take to send commands to V1 and V2?

About the same length of time it takes light to get there. Basically, it takes 30-32 hours (15+ there and 15+ back) from the time they send the command till they get back an acknowledgment that V1 or V2 accepted the command. Voyager 2 is about 10.8 billion miles out. Or about two hundred million miles less than Voyager 1.

The funny thing is, Voyager 2 was launched about two weeks before Voyager 1, yet Voyager 1 had a better trajectory and over took Voyager 2 rather quickly.

 

[Khartun]

About the same length of time it takes light to get there. Basically, it takes 30-32 hours (15+ there and 15+ back) from the time they send the command till they get back an acknowledgment that V1 or V2 accepted the command. Voyager 2 is about 10.8 billion miles out. Or about two hundred million miles less than Voyager 1.

The funny thing is, Voyager 2 was launched about two weeks before Voyager 1, yet Voyager 1 had a better trajectory and over took Voyager 2 rather quickly.

Cool, thx for the info. It is amazing how long they have been gone and that they are still functioning.

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

About the same length of time it takes light to get there. Basically, it takes 30-32 hours (15+ there and 15+ back) from the time they send the command till they get back an acknowledgment that V1 or V2 accepted the command. Voyager 2 is about 10.8 billion miles out. Or about two hundred million miles less than Voyager 1.

The funny thing is, Voyager 2 was launched about two weeks before Voyager 1, yet Voyager 1 had a better trajectory and over took Voyager 2 rather quickly.

Again, mind blowing stuff.

What an accomplishment for that team... knowing they put a device out there that is now 10+billion miles away, and still working.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

A great link off of Space.com, for those who want to look at 'em. They have an "image of the day" feature. Very cool shots in there.

http://www.space.com/34-image-day.html

 

[Aikmaniac]

Great stuff.

I did a research paper on Pioneer back in 6th grade. Really got me interested in space photos.

 

[YosemiteSam]

A great link off of Space.com, for those who want to look at 'em. They have an "image of the day" feature. Very cool shots in there.

http://www.space.com/34-image-day.html

I love Hubble photos. Look at the sheer violence being unleashed in this super nova that is literally still very early in the act of exploding. It like a still frame of one of those super cameras that film bullets or explosions. The difference is, this shot's exposure was probably taken over several days rather than in millisecond.

Just looking at the picture, you can't grasp how enormous that explosion is either. It's probably dwarfs than our entire solar system. (billions of miles wide)

http://i289.***BLOCKED***/albums/ll209/damoor1/hubble.jpg

 

[Joe Realist]

My first love was astronomy, unfortunately my second love was girls...

 

[Khartun]

My first love was astronomy, unfortunately my second love was girls...

:laugh2:

Yep, quickly destroys all other loves. LOL

 

[Rynie]

Very cool. Stuff like this makes me believe there is life out there we don't know about, and probably never will. I don't believe the human mind will really grasp how LARGE space is.

/space nerd oner

 

[DFWJC]

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

okay..........try this for size...literally

mind-blowing stuff

 

[G21]

This stuff is awesome.