NASA Events And Future Forum Mark 50 Years Of Americans In Orbit

Beth Dickey/David Steitz
Headquarters, Washington

Allard Beutel

Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

Lori Rachul

Glenn Research Center, Ohio

WASHINGTON -- Feb. 20 marks the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when U.S. Sen. John Glenn piloted his Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. orbital flight. In the next two weeks, NASA Television will broadcast a series of live events and special programming to commemorate 50 years of Americans in orbit, including the premiere of a new documentary and special interactive online features.

Here is a list of scheduled activities, all of which will be broadcast on NASA Television:

Thursday, Feb. 16

8-8:30 p.m.: Premiere of "Friendship 7: 50th Anniversary of Americans in Orbit" on NASA TV, a documentary on Glenn's historic mission featuring new interviews with Glenn and fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter.

Friday, Feb. 17

10-11 a.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter, the first two Americans to orbit Earth, will join NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana for a presentation about NASA's past, present and future. The event is open to employees at the space center in Florida.

3-3:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will conduct a news conference in the Mercury Mission Control exhibit of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Saturday, Feb. 18

6:30 p.m. EST: Glenn and Carpenter will participate in "On the Shoulders of Giants," a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex honoring all who made NASA's Project Mercury possible. The program will include remarks from Cabana, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and astronaut Steve Robinson, who flew with Glenn on his second trip into orbit on space shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission in 1998.

Monday, Feb. 20

1:30-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will speak live with the crew on board the International Space Station to kick off the agency's two-day Future Forum at Ohio State University in Columbus. Glenn also will participate in a panel session, "Learning from the Past to Innovate for the Future," at the event.

Tuesday, Feb. 21

3-3:15 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver closing remarks at the NASA Future Forum.

Friday, March 2

1-2 p.m. EST: Glenn will deliver the keynote address at "Celebrating John Glenn's Legacy: 50 Years of Americans in Orbit" a special event hosted by NASA's Glenn Research Center at Cleveland State University's Wolstein Center, 2000 Prospect Ave., in Cleveland. The tribute will be included in a Tweetup which the research center is hosting for its Twitter followers on the same day.

An interactive online feature about the Mercury program and Glenn's flight is available on the agency's Internet homepage at http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/glenn50/.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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NASA Spacecraft Revealing More Details About Planet Mercury

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Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, the first to achieve orbit around Mercury, is providing scientists new information about the planet. The data show widespread flood volcanism similar to Earth, clearer views of Mercury's surface, the first measurements of its elemental composition, and details about charged particles near the planet.

MESSENGER, or the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, conducted 15 laps through the inner solar system for more than six years before achieving the historic orbit insertion March 18. The new results are reported in seven papers published in Science magazine.

"MESSENGER's instruments are capturing data that can be obtained only from orbit," says principal investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "Mercury has many more surprises in store for us as our mission progresses."

Scientists for decades had puzzled over whether Mercury had volcanic deposits on its surface. New data show a huge expanse of volcanic plains surrounding the planet's north polar region. These continuous smooth plains cover more than six percent of the planet's total surface. The deposits appear typical of flood lavas, or huge volumes of solidified molten rock similar to those found in the northwest United States.

"If you imagine standing at the base of the Washington Monument, the top of the lavas would be something like 12 Washington Monuments above you," said James Head of Brown University, the lead author of one of the papers.

Scientists also have discovered vents or openings measuring up to 16 miles (25 kilometers) across that appear to be the source of some of the large volume of very hot lava that has rushed across Mercury's surface carving valleys and creating teardrop-shaped ridges in the underlying terrain.

New images reveal landforms on Mercury suggesting a previously unrecognized geological process. Images of bright areas appear to be small, shallow, irregularly shaped depressions. The science team adopted the term "hollows" for these features to distinguish them from other types of pits seen on Mercury. Hollows have been found over a wide range of latitudes and longitudes, suggesting that they are fairly common across Mercury.

"Analysis of the images and estimates of the rate at which the hollows may be growing led to the conclusion that they could be actively forming today," says David Blewett of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., lead author of one of the reports.

Scientists also now have observations of the chemical composition of Mercury's surface. The information is being used to test models of Mercury's formation and further study the relationship between the planet's tenuous atmosphere and surface makeup. Chemical measurements reveal a higher abundance of potassium than previously predicted.

"These measurements indicate Mercury has a chemical composition more similar to those of Venus, Earth, and Mars than expected," says APL's Patrick Peplowski, lead author of one of the papers.

MESSENGER also has collected the first global observations of plasma ions-- mostly sodium -- in Mercury's magnetosphere, the volume of space near the planet dominated by Mercury's magnetic field. These results reveal that Mercury's weak magnetosphere provides the planet very little protection from the gusty solar wind, resulting is a very hostile surface environment with extremes in space weather.

"We were able to observe the formation process of these ions, and it's comparable to the manner by which auroras are generated in the Earth's atmosphere near polar regions," said Thomas Zurbuchen of the University of Michigan and lead author of one of the reports.

MESSENGER was designed and built by APL. The lab manages and operates the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington. The mission is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed for SMD by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

For more information about the mission visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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NASA Spacecraft Reveals New Details Of Planet Mercury; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EDT on Sept. 29

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 29, to discuss new data and images from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft conducted fifteen laps through the inner solar system for more than six years before achieving the historic orbit insertion on March 18.

Briefing participants are:

-     Ed Graykzeck, MESSENGER program manager, NASA Headquarters, Washington

-     James Head, III, professor of geological sciences, Brown University

-     David Blewett, MESSENGER participating scientist and staff scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md.

-     Patrick Peplowski, staff scientist, APL

-     Thomas Zurbuchen, professor of space science and aerospace engineering, University of Michigan

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov or 202-358-1726, by noon on Sept. 29 for dial-in instructions.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.

Related images and supporting briefing information will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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NASA Spacecraft Reveals New Details Of Planet Mercury

If you’re into science and astronomy, discover these popular NASA books written by military veteran astronauts.

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

 

Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EDT on Sept. 29

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 29, to discuss new data and images from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft conducted fifteen laps through the inner solar system for more than six years before achieving the historic orbit insertion on March 18.

Briefing participants are:

-     Ed Graykzeck, MESSENGER program manager, NASA Headquarters, Washington

-     James Head, III, professor of geological sciences, Brown University

-     David Blewett, MESSENGER participating scientist and staff scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md.

-     Patrick Peplowski, staff scientist, APL

-     Thomas Zurbuchen, professor of space science and aerospace engineering, University of Michigan

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov or 202-358-1726, by noon on Sept. 29 for dial-in instructions.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.

Related images and supporting briefing information will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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NASA Spacecraft Confirms Theories, Sees Surprises at Mercury

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington                               

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA scientists are making new discoveries about the planet Mercury. Data from MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, is giving scientists important clues to the origin of the planet and its geological history and helping them better understand its dynamic interior and exterior processes.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, or MESSENGER, has been orbiting Mercury since March 18. To date the spacecraft has provided tens of thousands of images showing detailed planetary features. The planet's surface previously had been seen only at comparatively low resolution but is now in sharper focus.

The spacecraft also has collected extensive measurements of the chemical composition of Mercury's surface and topography and gathered global observations of the planet's magnetic field. Data now confirm that bursts of energetic particles in Mercury's magnetosphere are a continuing product of the interaction of Mercury's magnetic field with the solar wind.

"We are assembling a global overview of the nature and workings of Mercury for the first time," said MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "Many of our earlier ideas are being cast aside as new observations lead to new insights. Our primary mission has another three Mercury years to run, and we can expect more surprises as our solar system's innermost planet reveals its long-held secrets."

Flyby images of Mercury had detected bright, patchy deposits on some crater floors. Without high-resolution images to obtain a closer look, these features remained only a curiosity. Now new detailed images have revealed these patchy deposits to be clusters of rimless, irregular pits varying in size from several hundred feet to a few miles wide. These pits are often surrounded by diffuse halos of more reflective material and are found on central peaks, peak rings, and rims of craters.

"The etched appearance of these landforms is unlike anything we've seen before on Mercury or the moon," said Brett Denevi, a staff scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., and a member of the MESSENGER imaging team. "We are still debating their origin, but they appear to be relatively young and may suggest a more abundant than expected volatile component in Mercury's crust."

One of two instruments on the spacecraft designed to measure the quantity of key chemical elements on Mercury has made several important discoveries since the orbital mission began. Elemental ratios averaged over large areas of the planet's surface show that Mercury's surface differs markedly in composition from that of the moon.

Observations have revealed substantial amounts of sulfur at Mercury's surface, lending support to prior suggestions from ground-based telescopic observations that sulfide minerals are present. This discovery suggests that the original building blocks from which Mercury formed may have been less oxidized than those that formed the other terrestrial planets. The result also hints that sulfur-containing gases may have contributed to past explosive volcanic activity on Mercury.

Topography data of Mercury's northern hemisphere reveal the planet's large-scale shape and profiles of geological features in high detail. The north polar region is a broad area of low elevations, whereas the overall range in topographic heights seen to date exceeds 5 miles (9 kilometers).

Two decades ago, Earth-based radar images showed deposits thought to consist of water ice and perhaps other ices near Mercury's north and south poles. These deposits are preserved on the cold, permanently shadowed floors of high-latitude impact craters. MESSENGER is testing this idea by measuring the floor depths of craters near Mercury's north pole. The craters hosting polar deposits appear to be deep enough to be consistent with the idea that those deposits are in permanently shadowed areas.

During the first of three Mercury flybys in1974, Mariner 10 discovered bursts of energetic particles in the planet's Earth-like magnetosphere. Four bursts of particles were observed on that flyby. Scientists were puzzled that no such strong events were detected by MESSENGER during any of its three flybys of the planet in 2008 and 2009. But now that the spacecraft is in near-polar orbit around Mercury, energetic events are being seen regularly.

The spacecraft was designed and built by APL. The lab manages and operates the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington. The mission is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed for SMD by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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NASA Releasing New Spacecraft Orbital Views Of Mercury

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 16, to reveal new images and science findings from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. The event will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. NASA Television and the agency's website will broadcast the event.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER spacecraft conducted more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system for six years prior to achieving the historic orbit insertion on March 17.

Briefing participants are:

-- Brett Denevi, scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) , Laurel, Md.

-- Ralph McNutt, Jr., MESSENGER project scientist, APL

-- Larry Nittler, scientist, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington

-- Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator, Carnegie Institution

Reporters may attend the event, ask questions from participating NASA locations, or join by phone. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must email Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and work telephone number by 9 a.m. on June 16.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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NASA Honors Pioneer Astronaut Alan Shepard With Moon Rock

Doc Mirelson

Headquarters, Washington                                   

WASHINGTON -- NASA will posthumously honor Alan B. Shepard Jr., the first American astronaut in space who later walked on the moon, with an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his contributions to the U.S. space program.

Shepard's family members will accept the award on his behalf during a ceremony at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 28, at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, located at 74 Greenbury Point Road in Annapolis, Md. His family will present the award to the museum for permanent display. NASA's Chief Historian Bill Barry will represent the agency at the event, which will include a video message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Shepard, a 1945 graduate of the Naval Academy, was one of NASA's original seven Mercury astronauts selected in April 1959. On May 5, 1961, he was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a suborbital flight that carried him to an altitude of 116 miles.

Shepard made his second spaceflight as the commander of Apollo 14 from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, 1971. He was accompanied on the third lunar landing by astronauts Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell. Maneuvering the lunar module "Antares" to a landing in the hilly upland Fra Mauro region of the moon, Shepard and Mitchell deployed and activated a number of scientific instruments and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to Earth.

Reporters interested in covering the award ceremony must contact the Naval Academy's public affairs office at 410-293-2292 or mediarelations@usna.edu by noon, Wednesday, April 27, for access information.

NASA is giving the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the first generation of explorers in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs for realizing America's goal of going to the moon. The award is a moon rock encased in Lucite, mounted for public display.

The rock is part of the 842 pounds of lunar samples collected during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972. The astronauts or family members receiving the award present it to a museum of their choice, where the moon rock is placed on public display.

For pictures of the NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award, visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/AofEphotos.html.

Shepard retired from NASA in 1974 and passed away in July 1998. For more biographical information, visit http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/shepard-alan.html.

NASA Television will broadcast a Video File of the award presentation. For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

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First Image Ever Obtained from Mercury Orbit

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

NASA To Release Messenger's First Orbital Images Of Mercury Media Teleconference Scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA will release the first orbital image of Mercury's surface, including previously unseen terrain, on Tuesday afternoon, March 29. Several other images will be available Wednesday, March 30, in conjunction with a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT to discuss these initial orbital images taken from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, entered orbit March 17 after completing more than a dozen laps within the inner solar system during the past 6.6 years.

Media teleconference participants are:

-- Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator, Carnegie Institution of Washington

-- Eric Finnegan, MESSENGER mission systems engineer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel. Md.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov or 202-358-1726 for dial-in instructions.

For MESSENGER information and images, visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.

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NASA'S MESSENGER Spacecraft Begins Historic Orbit Around Mercury

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.

"This mission will continue to revolutionize our understanding of Mercury during the coming year," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who was at MESSENGER mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., as engineers received telemetry data confirming orbit insertion. "NASA science is rewriting text books. MESSENGER is a great example of how our scientists are innovating to push the envelope of human knowledge."

At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers Operations Center, received the anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the planet Mercury. NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, rotated back to the Earth by 9:45 p.m. EDT, and started transmitting data. Upon review of the data, the engineering and operations teams confirmed the burn executed nominally with all subsystems reporting a clean burn and no logged errors.

MESSENGER's main thruster fired for approximately 15 minutes at 8:45 p.m., slowing the spacecraft by 1,929 miles per hour and easing it into the planned orbit about Mercury. The rendezvous took place about 96 million miles from Earth.

"Achieving Mercury orbit was by far the biggest milestone since MESSENGER was launched more than six and a half years ago," said Peter Bedini, MESSENGER project manager of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). "This accomplishment is the fruit of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of the navigation, guidance-and-control, and mission operations teams, who shepherded the spacecraft through its 4.9-billion-mile journey."

For the next several weeks, APL engineers will be focused on ensuring the spacecraft's systems are all working well in Mercury's harsh thermal environment. Starting on March 23, the instruments will be turned on and checked out, and on April 4 the mission's primary science phase will begin.

"Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored," said Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system's innermost planet. Mercury's secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed."

APL designed and built the spacecraft. The lab manages and operates the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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Celebrating Mercury Orbit

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, left, shakes hands with Eric Finnegan, MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer, right, as John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Director Dr. Ralph Semmel, second from right, and Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA look on. The congratulations came after the spacecraft successfully inserted itself in Mercury's orbit, Thursday, March 17, 2011.

MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, is carrying seven science instruments and is fortified against the blistering environs near the sun. The orbit insertion will place the spacecraft into a 12-hour orbit about Mercury with a 200 124 mile minimum altitude.

MESSENGER will be 28.67 million miles from the sun and 96.35 million miles from Earth.

Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers

NASA TV To Cover MESSENGER Spacecraft Entering Mercury's Orbit

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

WASHINGTON -- NASA Television and the agency's website will carry live coverage from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT Thursday as the first spacecraft enters Mercury's orbit. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which operates the MESSENGER spacecraft, is conducting the webcast from its mission control building in Laurel, Md.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, is scheduled to enter the planet's orbit at approximately 9 p.m. after conducting more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system for the past 6.6 years.

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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NASA Media Telecon Previews First Spacecraft To Orbit Mercury

Dwayne Brown

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Paulette Campbell

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 15, to discuss the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, will enter orbit at approximately 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 17. The spacecraft has conducted more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system for the past 6.6 years.

Media teleconference participants are:

-- Andy Calloway, MESSENGER mission operations manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.

-- Carl Engelbrecht, MESSENGER propulsion subsystem lead, APL

-- Sean Solomon, MESSENGER principal investigator, Carnegie Institution of Washington

To participate and to receive dial-in instructions, reporters must contact Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or 202-358-0918.

During the briefing, related images will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/MOITelecon.html.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.

At 10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 16, NASA experts will hold a one-hour, live Web chat to answer questions about MESSENGER's orbital insertion. The chat window will open at 9:30 a.m. To participate, visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/messenger_chat.html.

For more information about the mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/messenger.

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What's Up for March 2011?

What's Up for March. The sun and Mercury.

Hello and welcome! I'm Jane Houston Jones at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

On March 18 NASA's Messenger spacecraft is scheduled to be inserted into orbit around Mercury. It will be the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

To get there, Messenger traveled through the inner solar system, flying by Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury three times. The spacecraft used the gravity of Venus to resize and rotate its flight path closer to Mercury's orbit in 2006 and 2007.

Messenger experienced many extreme conditions during its nearly 5 billion mile journey to Mercury.

You can see elusive Mercury for yourself this month, too. Look for Mercury next to larger and brighter Jupiter 45 minutes after sunset all month long. They'll look light two bright stars very low on the western horizon.

On Mercury orbit insertion day, March 18, you can see Mercury to the upper right of Jupiter.

And on the 19th, join your local astronomy club or science center as they celebrate Sun-Earth Day. This year offers solar observers a myriad of amazing features.

But take care and never look directly at the sun, or you'll damage your eyes.

Through special solar-safe telescope filters, you can see sunspots on the sun. If you see any large sunspot groups, try to observe them over several days. You may be able to see them march across the sun's photosphere as our star rotates.

Flares that explode and prominences that sometimes erupt into space from the sun can be seen with special H-alpha filters. These special narrow-band filters isolate only the hydrogen alpha wavelength. This filter blocks all the other color of light and reveals the sun's chromosphere.

You can learn more about Sun-Earth Day events and hands-on activities at solarsystem.nasa.gov/yss, which stands for Year of the Solar System.

And you can learn all about NASA missions at www.nasa.gov

That's all for this month. I’m Jane Houston Jones.