First image ever from Mercury orbit

[Cody]

Mercury

[DaddyHoggy]

Excellent - wonder if they have to do anything "special" to MESSENGER from a clock point of view because its so deep into the Sun's space-time curvature and will be affected by the same issues as the planet itself (although is this any different, effectively, from Satellites in orbit around the Earth?)

[Makandal]

Beautiful but geologically boring. I prefer Venus.

[Fatleaf]

I prefer Venus.

Ahh Earth's evil twin!

[Smivs]

I prefer Venus.

Ahh Earth's evil twin!

That's Nibiru, isn't it

[Cody]

More pics

[drew]

Beautiful but geologically boring. I prefer Venus.

Quite the opposite actually. Mercury has a strong magnetic field, which applies a molten core. Given it's barely bigger than the moon, this is extremely unusual and difficult to explain.

Mercury is also far denser, on average, than any other planet in the solar system. Thus, lots of metal.

Mercury is also tidally locked, so it may have stores of ice on its 'dark side' which could be extremely useful for future space exploration.#

Lots to see on Mercury, and unlike Venus, no annoying high pressure gas to get in the way.

Cheers,

Drew.

[TGHC]

it's a bit too warm there for exploration/space travel I would have thought

[Disembodied]

Mercury is also tidally locked, so it may have stores of ice on its 'dark side' which could be extremely useful for future space exploration.

I used to think that, then I read Saturn's Children by Charles Stross ... apparently Mercury isn't tidally locked, but is held in a spin-orbit resonance with the sun: it rotates three times around its axis for every two revolutions around the sun. Saturn's Children features a city called Cinnabar, which moves on rails around the planet, tracking the twilight zone and drawing power from the temperature differential.

[drew]

Mercury is also tidally locked, so it may have stores of ice on its 'dark side' which could be extremely useful for future space exploration.

I used to think that, then I read Saturn's Children by Charles Stross ... apparently Mercury isn't tidally locked, but is held in a spin-orbit resonance with the sun: it rotates three times around its axis for every two revolutions around the sun. Saturn's Children features a city called Cinnabar, which moves on rails around the planet, tracking the twilight zone and drawing power from the temperature differential.

Your absolutely right... Guess there could still be ice in some of the darker craters though... Will be interesting to find out!

Cheers,

Drew.

[JensAyton]

Mercury as a fuel dump doesn’t sound very plausible anyway, because you need to shed a lot of orbital velocity to get there (and burn as much to get back here). It took longer to get MESSENGER to Mercury than to get Galileo to Jupiter, involving six planetary flybys, and the resulting orbit is highly eccentric; landing would require even more delta-v. Without bothering to actually look for studies, I’m guessing it would be easier to mine water on Europa, which has lots, and has a much lower escape velocity, and you’d be in a much better position to get anywhere in the universe other than Mercury or Venus afterwards.