Signs in the heavens?
LONDON DAILY MAIL [Associated Newspapers/DMGT] - January 18, 2008
Dramatic new pictures have revealed the unseen side of Mercury in detailed images taken from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the planet.
Astronomers saw the "dark side" of Mercury for the very first time when the spacecraft flew within 125 miles of the planet's surface and took 1,200 high resolution images.
The reason the solar system's smallest planet is so elusive is due to its close proximity to the sun.
The light from the sun makes Mercury difficult to see from Earth and when spacecrafts have flown close to the planet on previous occasions only one side has been bathed in sunlight while the other has been shrouded in darkness.
When the Mariner 10 probe flew past the innermost planet in 1974 and 1975, the same hemisphere was illuminated each time due to the fact Mercury rotates three times during every two orbits.
The new pictures from the Messenger craft show features as small as six miles across on the planet which is 57 million miles away from Earth.
Among many new sights, the picture shows the full Caloris Basin, a huge impact basin more than 620 miles across that sits on the border between the known and previously unknown regions of the planet.
They also show the complete basin interior and reveal that it is brighter than the surrounding regions, which could suggest it has a different composition.
There are darker smooth areas completely surrounding Caloris and unusual dark-rimmed craters in the basin.
More unprecedented images of the tiny planet are expected as the spacecraft completes three flybys of Mercury before settling into orbit in March 2011.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=508772&in_page_id=1965
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