What's In Mercury's Mysterious Bright Spot?

During its most recent flyby of Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft caught another glimpse of the innermost planet's mysterious bright spot

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d796d0eb5862.jpg[/atsimg]

One of the new images shows a bright spot on the planet's surface, a feature that scientists cannot yet explain.

The new view was the third of the spot, which was first seen in telescopic images of Mercury obtained from Earth by astronomer Ronald Dantowitz. The second view was obtained by the MESSENGER Narrow Angle Camera during the spacecraft's second Mercury flyby Oct. 6, 2008. At that time, the bright feature was just on the planet's limb (edge) as seen from MESSENGER

From this article: What's In Mercury's Bright Spot?

I wonder what is causing this phenomenon? I wonder if it is a certian type of mineral that is reflecting the light differnetly then it's surroundings, but why would it be so concentrated in one area?

Here is a thread I posted earlier with pictures from the MESSENGER fly over
High-Res Images of New Territory on Mercury

-E-

[edit on 2-10-2009 by MysterE]

if you look up into the top left of that photo, there seems to be many "bright spots". now if this bright spot were on the dark side, this might be something, otherwise it just could be an accumulation of a particular light-reflective mineral.

Perhaps a meteor made up of some sort of reflective mineral,impacted at that point of the planets surface?

What gets me is this quote

a feature that scientists cannot yet explain.

So I can only assume they have ruled out meteor impact, or volcanic activity. Or maybe they are not sure which one it is?

-E-

I wonder if there's water on Mercury!

Loooooooooong SHOT. Its a Mercury space base using a form of CLOAK to hide the BUSSINESS THEY ARE DOING THERE THAT IS REFLECTING. TOld yal loooooong shot lol.

Originally posted by MOTT the HOOPLE
I wonder if there's water on Mercury!

Hey, you got water in my Mercury....No, you got Mercury in my water...

Originally posted by MOTT the HOOPLE
I wonder if there's water on Mercury!

planet is too hot, water anywhere would boil off.

On the moon we see similar things with the TLP's, especially around Aristarchus crater. One mainstream theory has to do with gamma radiation being amplified by the regolith in some areas, causing the bright spots we see.

Perhaps the same can be said of Mercury.

Maybe something radioactive crashed there leaving a slight "glow"...

reply to post by MysterE


I have had the privilege to see photos of the planet Mercury and was taken

back at the statues and monuments on the planet. One in particular was an

incredible deer looking humanoid face mix with a perfect U shaped rack and

this huge statue has to be at least 1 mile high. Many of the statues and

monuments reminded me of the Greek and Roman ages of mythology and

their ancient Gods

^Y^



[edit on 2-10-2009 by amari]

Originally posted by amari
reply to post by MysterE

 

I have had the privilege to see photos of the planet Mercury and was taken

back at the statues and monuments on the planet. One in particular was an

incredible deer looking humanoid face mix with a perfect U shaped rack and

this huge statue has to be at least 1 mile high. Many of the statues and

monuments reminded me of the Greek and Roman ages of mythology and

their ancient Gods

^Y^


[edit on 2-10-2009 by amari]

Lolwut?

Noramlly, this would be evidence of ice* obviously..it also could be, at the angle the spacecraft was, refelction of sunlight off the surface, giving the fasle appearance of ice..an illusion like a sundog, rainbow, sun pillars* seen here on earth..its all a light illusion*

Originally posted by Happyfeet

Originally posted by amari
reply to post by MysterE

 

I have had the privilege to see photos of the planet Mercury and was taken

back at the statues and monuments on the planet. One in particular was an

incredible deer looking humanoid face mix with a perfect U shaped rack and

this huge statue has to be at least 1 mile high. Many of the statues and

monuments reminded me of the Greek and Roman ages of mythology and

their ancient Gods

^Y^


[edit on 2-10-2009 by amari]

Lolwut?

You read it right LOL and it depends on the angle of the full spectrum light

hitting the surface of Mercury from our Solar System's Sun to see these

structures and statues on Mercury from satellite photos.


The Bright Spot would not be as visible if it were not for the Sun and at

different 1 degree rotating photographed angles of the surface you are able

to see different structures on the surface. By rotating satellite photos 360

degrees taken from Mercury also helps to lock in on different anomalies. ^Y^

There are some interesting things about this that I have noticed...

First is that there was a problem that occured at the exact time that the images were to be taken, resulting in a loss of data. This is a quote from a space.com article.

"MESSENGER also took snapshots during its close approach, but "we had a little bit of a hiccup in the data" that has delayed the release of those images, said Eric Finnegan, systems engineer for the mission at Johns Hopkins APL. "It's coming," he added."

full article here
www.space.com...

Some say that it will not just be a delay in those images being released but that they may not be released at all. I find this especially odd because it is not the first time that a NASA craft has been waiting for months or even longer in order to do some science and when the time finally arives there is a malfunction. After all that time of waiting, doing basically nothing it malfunctions right at the money shot. I would need to do a little digging but I'm pretty sure something similar happened with deep impact.

The other odd thing is the bright spot itself. The caption to a picture of the bright spot posted on space.com says this

"Color images from MESSENGER's Wide Angle Camera reveal that the irregular depression and bright halo have distinctive color. "

Here is a link to the picture and it's caption. It is the top left photo in this article

www.space.com...

The odd thing is that the picture presented is not in color and I have yet to see any color photos of the fly by. If somone can post the color version I would love to see it. Otherwise I would like to know where the color photo is and why it has not been released.

And what is the distinctive color they say it has? Is it blue? Or maybe even green?

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw


Great post fieryjaguarpaw, I will try to dig up that color photo. Very "interesting" that they would have a malfunction at such an important time.

-E-

Theres White Ash that is formed from some of the Volcanoes in the African ridge, the reason is due to the mineralisation and cooling temperature of the Lava. It wouldnt be too far fetched to imagine the Impact crater magmified the rock due to the radiant heat which then cooled rapidly on the far side of the Planet as it was facing away from the Sun (as obviously any impact on Mercury would be away from the Sun due to the Sun's close proximity to the Planet.)

Actually there is water on Mercury, in the extremely thin atmosphere that is.

As MESSENGER flew past the night side of Mercury in January, its Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) scooped up ions from an atmosphere so tenuous that it's usually called an "exosphere." FIPS measured the expected amounts of ions like sodium, potassium, and calcium that had previously been detected in Mercury's exosphere, but to the science team's great surprise there was also water present, and in large amounts. "Nobody expected that. I don't know a single person that did. We were astonished, just astonished," said MESSENGER science team member Thomas Zurbuchen.

www.planetary.org...


Water or water related ions will be found almost everywhere as it is CREATED through the interaction with the solar wind and oxygen molecules,(IMO) this is why it's found on the moon, this is why comets show strong water signals or rather OH, but not enough and in most cases none can be accounted for on the surface, and why Enceladus plumes resemble comet plumes, from ions streaming from Saturn in that case.
My opinion only people don't get upset.

The cratering may not be from impacts directly, but most probably electrical discharge either from bolides or from the magnetic tornadoes, flux ropes AKA Birkeland currents forming above the atmosphere. They've been discovered all over now above many of the planets including the Earth. It's possible these currents in a more powerful state could touch down on etching out the surface. Lab experiments in discharge have replicated the difficult aspects of cratering quite well.
We know spluttering is taking place this is why they have the water signals, Imagine spluttering on a grand scale.
Impact theory fails to account for a good deal of what has been observed in recent years.

This is not mainstream astronomically speaking, So I know the regulars will probably disagree. however the science is very mainstream it's just not considered when it comes to established planetary science. Although that is changing fast, I've been keeping my eye on the subject for a few years now, many things that where once considered bunk are now fact.

We'll be here waiting.