The project successfully completed Messenger – Always

Science

The April 30, 2015

René Anaya

On April 30, the MESSENGER spacecraft completed its space mission as it was scheduled, crashed into the surface of Mercury, to 14 080 kilometers per hour, after almost 11 years of having started its long journey to the closest Solar System planet.

NASA scientists determined that the ship as fuel, is a specific site would impact Mercury, instead of waiting for it to be losing altitude and falling uncontrollably in a vague place on the planet. Thus ended the mission of the space messenger who has provided a wealth of information about the planet.

A Messenger well equipped

On August 3, 2004, the spacecraft Messenger, Acronym Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Measurement of Mercury ( Mercury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry and Ranging , in English) of 485 kilograms, was launched from Cape Canaveral towards Mercury, in the long journey of 7000 900 kilometers, which included 15 laps of the Sun and Earth flybys (once), Venus ( twice) and Mercury (three times), before putting into orbit of Mercury, March 18, 2011.

That long journey was made with only 600 kilograms of propellants, ie fuel and oxidizing ( substances that contribute to or accelerate combustion) to produce large amounts of heat energy, with a flight plan that allowed him to effectively utilize that energy.

To protect equipment from direct solar radiation, designed a Ceramic screen, highly reflective. “The face of the shield put up over 300 ° Celsius temperatures, so that the devices always operate at about 20 ° C. This technology was key to the success of the mission, said Helene Winters, head of the Laboratory Project . Applied Physics at Johns Hopkins

It was also featured dual solar panels that provided enough energy to not overheat in orbit around Mercury; and energetic particle spectrometers, X-rays and gamma rays, among other equipment.

To send all information, telemetry antennas based on a military device, which allowed transmit created more than 10 Messenger scientists terabytes of data to Earth. Also, the SciBox software is designed to optimize planning and generate scripts to make observations with several instruments.

Mercury, a fascinating world

In addition, the camera is used with dual image system (MDIS, for its acronym in English), which received more than 280 000 photographs; with Laser Altimeter (MLA, for its acronym in English a three-dimensional map was made. With all that equipment “for the first time in history we have real knowledge of Mercury, showing that it is a fascinating world of our diverse solar system,” said John Grunsfeld, deputy director of NASA.

Now you have managed to uncover many of the secrets of the planet, because in the long journey to Mercury and in 4000 gave 105 laps around the planet, the Messenger could determine its internal magnetic field is offset from the center of the planet, also it found that some of the numerous craters on the planet have irregular pits groups ranging from hundreds of meters to several kilometers, surrounded by a material that bends light (refraction ).

It also is known to have high concentrations of magnesium, silicon, aluminum and calcium, which seems to show that in the area not dominated by feldspar, as it does with the lunar soil. Another finding is the abundance of volatile elements such as potassium, chloride and thorium; besides large quantities of sulfur

were detected, confirming the volcanic nature of Mercury, very different from the Moon, satellite with which it was compared by aridity and profusion of craters. The Messenger managed unravel the mystery of the bursts of energy from the magnetosphere of Mercury, now known to be no electrons and ions. But most surprising was to confirm that the polar regions there is plenty of ice, so much so that if it extends over an area the size of the Federal District (1495 km ² ) have a thickness of more than three kilometers. That ice is covered by a dark organic material, which may be coal dust from nearby the Sun comets.

These are some of the details of this fascinating planet, but still need to analyze much more information collected by Messenger, one of the most successful space projects in the United States.

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