http://www.mercurytoday.com/ Mercury Today - Mercury News as it Happens en-us Mon, 6 Feb 2012 0:27:01 PST kcowing@spaceref.com mkboucher@spaceref.com Copyright 2006, SpaceRef Interactive Inc. http://images.spaceref.com/mercury.today.rss.jpg http://www.mercurytoday.com/ 101 52 Mercury Today, a service of SpaceRef http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewpr.rss.html?pid=35933 NASA has announced that it will extend the MESSENGER mission for an additional year of orbital operations at Mercury beyond the planned end of the primary mission on March 17, 2012. Thu, 2 Feb 2012 17:33:21 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39483 The crater at the center of this image is named Dickens, after Charles Dickens, the English novelist who lived from 1812 to 1870. Among Dickens' famous works is A Christmas Carol. Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:50:36 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewpr.rss.html?pid=35586 NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin today released an audit examining NASA's real property master planning efforts. Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:06:42 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39291 Members of the MESSENGER team will present a broad range of findings from the spacecraft's orbital investigation of Mercury during the 2011 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which takes place this week, December 5-9, in San Francisco. Thu, 8 Dec 2011 2:20:22 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39290 The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed a fifth orbit-correction maneuver today to lower MESSENGER's periapsis altitude from 442 to 200 kilometers and decrease the orbital period from 12 hours to 11 hours and 47 minutes. Thu, 8 Dec 2011 2:19:37 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39237 This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel morphology base map or the 1-km/pixel color base map. Fri, 2 Dec 2011 12:00:03 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39216 This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map will cover more than 90% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel). Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:09:02 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39196 The small crater at the left side of this image is named for Juan de Mena, a Spanish poet of the 15th century. Mena has extensive bright rays, which can be better appreciated in the global map of Mercury (right on the equator, part way in from the left). Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:39:54 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39148 These images were acquired as high-resolution targeted observations. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel color base map. Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:09:18 http://www.mercurytoday.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=39138 The small green square in this image marks the point at zero degrees latitude and 180 degrees longitude on Mercury's surface. This is one of Mercury's two "hot poles." Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:45:40