Something "interesting" Spotted on Mercury by the messenger probe..... live Youtube broadcast 7pm

Another tantalising titbit from NASA on this Thursday afternoon....

"NASA will be making an announcement about something "interesting" spotted by MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

The announcement is at 2pm EST and you can watch it live here: http://(link tracking not allowed)/QsBvZC "

Always been a bit of a mystery to me me Mercury.. not a lot is known about this planet.... I for one am rather excited!

Interesting... A monolith maybe?? Any ideas ATS?

PA

reply to post by PerfectAnomoly



I'm assuming that it's a youtube link?

No one-liner intended, just want to clarify the link supplied.

reply to post by FreedomLuva


Indeed it is.... should be able to find it at 7pm uk time.... Wouldn't let me post a link...

PA

..and then just before they announce it, someone from NASA will come up and say 'well, its that interesting afterall'.



Too much 'crying wolf' with these space science announcements. My opinion.

reply to post by OratoryHeist


True... this does seem to be the pattern recently.... I am afraid what scientists find "interesting" is quite far removed from what your average person finds "interesting"...

I like to think we here on ATS are slightly more enlightened than uour average joe though... so we may find it interesting at the very least.....

PA

It is most likely related to this:

Nov. 28, 2012 -- Whether your favorite TV show was Dark Shadows or Northern Exposure, you'll get to enjoy a little of both in this new image from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft!

Made up of a series of images acquired by MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument, this projected view looks straight down on the north pole of our solar system's innermost planet. The images were taken over the course of 7 scientific imaging campaigns, and thus needed to be averaged together to create an evenly-lit final image.

Because Mercury's rotational axis isn't tilted like Earth's, the sun doesn't rise very high above the horizon at its poles over the course of its 88-day-long year. As such, the inner slopes of the deep polar craters seen above never receive direct sunlight -- and are thought to contain deposits of water ice.

Three times closer to the sun than Earth, Mercury's daytime surface temperature can soar to a scorching 425 ºC (800 ºF) but without much of an atmosphere to transmit or hold that heat temperatures on its night side can drop as low as -185 ºC (-300 ºF). Since these shadowy craters literally never see the light of day, any ice that's gathered there over the last 4.5 billion years will remain permanently frozen, harder than rock.

news.discovery.com...

reply to post by PerfectAnomoly


True, always worth paying attention. just incase.

You never know they may be hiding hidden messages within what they say about these 'interesting' things.

reply to post by LeatherNLace



Yes. I was going to mention this is possibly what it is.

Finding evidence of water ice on Mercury would qualify as being "interesting", although the possibility does make sense given the fact that they discovered areas on the planet that are permanently in shadows.

Permanent shadows + A solar system that has quite a bit of water (at least water ice) = The possibility of water ice on Mercury

Still, I think it is quite interesting.

reply to post by LeatherNLace


Good find sir!

Probably confirmation that that have found ice/water then I would assume....

I shall be watching later to find out!

PA

Originally posted by LeatherNLace
The images were taken over the course of 7 scientific imaging campaigns, and thus needed to be averaged together to create an evenly-lit final image.

...and in years to come will be put forward as further "proof" that NASA is photoshopping images to hide the truth.

there is another thread about it, but the long and short is that they found more evidence of water ice on the poles, with the possibility of organic materials.

Now the newest data from MESSENGER strongly indicate that water ice is the major constituent of Mercury's north polar deposits, that ice is exposed at the surface in the coldest of those deposits, but that the ice is buried beneath an unusually dark material across most of the deposits, areas where temperatures are a bit too warm for ice to be stable at the surface itself.

According to Paige, the dark material is likely a mix of complex organic compounds delivered to Mercury by the impacts of comets and volatile-rich asteroids, the same objects that likely delivered water to the innermost planet.The organic material may have been darkened further by exposure to the harsh radiation at Mercury's surface, even in permanently shadowed areas.

you can read the press release here