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Hello, Mercury!
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Caption:
With four days remaining until MESSENGER's third flyby of Mercury , MDIS captured this NAC image of the approaching planet. Mercury appears as a sunlit crescent, and the MESSENGER spacecraft is quickly approaching at a speed of approximately 3.3 kilometers/second (7,400 miles/hour)! View this animation to watch the many instrument observations planned for the upcoming encounter next week.
Date Acquired:
September 25, 2009
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET):
162359963
Instrument:
Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution:
33 kilometers/pixel (21 miles/pixel)
Scale:
Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude:
1,300,000 kilometers (810,000 miles)
Background Info:
These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy .
Cataloging Keywords:
| Name | Value | Additional Values |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Mercury | |
| System | ||
| Target Type | Planet | |
| Mission | MESSENGER | |
| Instrument Host | MESSENGER | |
| Host Type | Orbiter | |
| Instrument | Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) | |
| Detector | Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) | |
| Extra Keywords | Grayscale | |
| Acquisition Date | ||
| Release Date | 2009-09-25 | |
| Date in Caption | 2009-09-25 | |
| Image Credit | NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington | |
| Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12262 | |
| Identifier | PIA12262 | |
