Beautiful photograph of the planet Mercury by the spacecraft Messenger

[BurtWorm]

[texastoast]

1. Bless its heart

It really does look like charcoal if that is a color photo.

[RoccoR5955]

5. It's not a color photo, but it SHOULD look like charcoal

It's so close to a very intense heat source.
I believe it is thought to be made of rock with an iron core.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. It's staring at us.

;)

[CrispyQ]

7. ...

:)

[navarth]

Wow, thanks for posting

[garlicmilkshake]

3. Beautiful photo...ugly-assed planet.

;-)

[BurtWorm]

10. I don't know... Looks like a ripe canteloupe to me.

Makes me hungry....

[thatone]

21. mmmm.....cantaloupe.

[Fla Dem]

31. probably what earth would look like if you stripped away all the foliage. n/t

[Jamastiene]

42. Actually, I used to have a theory about why we live on the "3rd rock

from the Sun." Humans already lived on and destroyed both Mercury and Venus. Now, we are exploring and readying Mars while we destroy Earth. Yep, that would be how humans do things.

[RainDog]

4. Beautiful. k&r n/t

[gratuitous]

6. Is that McCain's ass in orbit?

Man, Obama kicked it HARD tonight.

[McCCain4retirment]

8. hahahah!!!!

[IndianaJohn]

9. Uhh...isn't that the moon?

No, really, that is a good photo.

[Puzzler]

37. It's not the moon...

... but there has always been some resemblance.

[lpbk2713]

11. I think I can see some Golden Arches ....

... and maybe a Wal-Mart sign. :eyes:

[Fridays Child]

12. If oranges were that pretty, I'd be a vitamin C junkie.

Seriously, that is just stunning!

[Mike Nelson]

13. Hot picture

I thought the planet was more brownish

[BrklynLiberal]

14. It looks like a star sapphire

[TlalocW]

15. I can't believe that shithole is a planet

But Pluto isn't. This is just another example of the media being in Obama's pocket.

TlalocW

[BurtWorm]

16. "That one," eh?

Oh what a giveaway! Planetist!

:patriot:

[Bunny]

27. Watch it there, Burt. A lot of us are still smarting at Pluto's demotion.

We've formed a group called Pluto Usurped My Ass (or PUMA, for short). And we mean business!





:) :hi:

[BurtWorm]

29. Only because it's you, I'll refrain from saying, "Get over it!"

:hi:

Hi, Ms. Bunny!

[lonestarnot]

17. Way cool!

Thanks for posting!

[Adsos Letter]

18. It's got lazer eyes!

[Trillo]

19. Has anyone hypothesized about the surface marks

that look something like a neuron? I see one close to the center of the image, and a second one at about 4:00 (as if a clock was superimposed)

Here are images of neurons:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=neuron&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title&gbv=1&ei=ni7sSKCrN5CktQPcyez9Cw

I can understand that a meteor might make a crater, which could explain the center of each one, but what are the surface phenomenons around each center point?

[Wednesdays]

20. They look like a couple of BB shots to a windshield

So, what's the phenomenons around damaged windshields? (I'm not just joking about this, there might be some physics in common with those markings on Mercury, assuming they were caused by asteroid collisions.)

[Trillo]

32. I can see that similarity. n/t

[BurtWorm]

22. I believe they're called ejecta

It's the paths of heavy matter under the crater impact that gets shot out, apparently for hundreds of miles--or thousands even, it looks like. The thinness of the atmosphere and relative weakness of the gravitational field on the planet must make those impacts amazingly spectacular.

[Trillo]

33. Thanks.

I also notice the coloring is different from many of the other craters. I wonder what causes the whiteness of those two versus the others? I suppose it could even be a distortion of some kind related to the photography.

[pokerfan]

39. Yeah, like Tycho crater on our moon

my layman's guess.

[bean fidhleir]

25. "what are the surface phenomena"

The tracks of bits of rock that were shoved violently outward from the impact point.

[Trillo]

34. Perhaps those two were impacts of greater magnitude than the others? n/t

[Jamastiene]

43. Could it be two castaways holding up mirrors

to reflect the Sun in hopes of being rescued? :P

[BurtWorm]

23. kick

[bmbmd]

24. Don't be fooled.

That's Sarah Palin's mammogram.

[ThomWV]

26. Look real hard at the lower left of the photo and you can see the Sweet Baby Jesus

Smoking a big cigar.

[BurtWorm]

30. Let's put it on e-bay!

:bounce:

[kayakjohnny]

28. Reminds me of roadways that connected ancient cities.

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. What city is that?

[Xenotime]

35. Somebody tell me why I should care?

It's not like we can do anything with it. I wish we could move all the RW fundies there.

[BurtWorm]

36. Well, there you go.

And right after you said there's nothing we can do with it.

[pokerfan]

40. umm, knowledge is good?

[Jamastiene]

41. Look at it....

just sitting there... Bet it thinks it's better than us because it's closer to the Sun. :P

Thanks for the great photo. Me likey. :thumbsup: