Project managers guide missions from concept to completion, working closely with team members to accomplish what they set out to do. A camera payload uplink lead writes software commands that tell a rover what pictures to take. The first thing that fired my imagination for planetary science was when the NASA Voyager spacecraft discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. Melding science with design, artists create everything from large-scale installations to the NASA posters hanging in your bedroom.
Media specialists tells stories across social media and help feature missions and people on TV and in films, books, magazines, and news sites. Administrators and directors work out of NASA headquarters, prioritizing science questions and seeking to expand the frontiers of discovery. Whether it's introducing kids to space or teaching physics to PhD candidates, educators help share their knowledge with the public. Engineers design and build all types of machines, from what a spacecraft looks like to the software that directs where a rover goes each day.
From an astrophysicist to a volcanologist, scientists of all types pose questions and help find answers to the mysteries of our universe.
The important thing about being a scientist or an engineer is learning how to think critically, learning how to be creative, learning problem solving and learning how to learn. Eyes on the Solar System lets you explore the planets, their moons, asteroids, comets and the spacecraft exploring them from to Ride with the Curiosity Rover as it lands on Mars or fly by Pluto with the New Horizons spacecraft all from the comfort of your home computer.
Introduction Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it is hard to directly observe from Earth except during dawn or twilight when the Sun's brightness doesn't outshine little Mercury. More about Susan Niebur It is this diversity of thought that fosters creative solutions to difficult problems. If you know you want to do something, go and find someone who will help you do it. More about Louise Prockter. More about Jim Bridenstine. Kuiper studied the planets More about Gerard Kuiper - The process crumpled the surface, creating lobe-shaped scarps or cliffs, some hundreds of miles long and soaring up to a mile high, as well as Mercury's " Great Valley ," which at about miles long, miles wide and 2 miles deep 1, by by 3.
Indeed, a study of cliffs on Mercury's surface suggested the planet may still rumble with earthquakes, or "Mercuryquakes. However, another study suggested Mercury's volcano eruptions likely ended about 3. One study suggested that Mercury's surface features can generally be divided into two groups — one consisting of older material that melted at higher pressures at the core-mantle boundary, and the other of newer material that formed closer to Mercury's surface.
Another study found that the dark hue of Mercury's surface is due to carbon. This carbon wasn't deposited by impacting comets, as some researchers suspected — instead, it may be a remnant of the planet's primordial crust. A completely unexpected discovery made by Mariner 10 was that Mercury possessed a magnetic field. Planets theoretically generate magnetic fields only if they spin quickly and possess a molten core.
But Mercury takes 59 days to rotate and is so small — just roughly one-third Earth's size — that its core should have cooled off long ago. An unusual interior could help to explain the differences in Mercury's magnetic field when compared to Earth. Russell co-authored a model that suggests that Mercury's iron core may be turning from liquid to solid at the core's outer boundary rather than the inner.
The discovery in by Earth-based radar observations that Mercury's core may still be molten could help explain its magnetism, though the solar wind may play a role in dampening the planet's magnetic field. The magnetic field in the solar wind — the charged particles streaming off the sun — periodically touches upon Mercury's field, creating powerful magnetic tornadoes that channel the fast, hot plasma of the solar wind down to the planet's surface. Instead of a substantial atmosphere, Mercury possesses an ultra-thin "exosphere" made up of atoms blasted off its surface by solar radiation, the solar wind and micrometeoroid impacts.
These quickly escape into space, forming a tail of particles , according to NASA. The atmosphere of Mercury is a " surface-bound exosphere , essentially a vacuum. Its oval-shaped orbit is highly elliptical, taking Mercury as close as 29 million miles 47 million km and as far as 43 million miles 70 million km from the sun. If one could stand on Mercury when it is nearest to the sun, it would appear more than three times as large as it does when viewed from Earth.
Oddly, due to Mercury's highly elliptical orbit and the 59 Earth-days or so it takes to rotate on its axis, when on the scorching surface of the planet, the sun appears to rise briefly, set, and rise again before it travels westward across the sky.
Like the other planets in the solar system, Mercury was born about 4. However, the small planet cooled very quickly , contracting enough within the first billion or so years to prevent magma from escaping through the outer crust and ending geologic activity such as volcanism on the surface. Despite its proximity to our star, Mercury is not the hottest planet in the solar system.
With no atmosphere to trap heat, surface temperatures on Mercury can swing from degrees Fahrenheit during the day to degrees Fahrenheit at night. Mercury may even have reservoirs of ice sitting deep inside permanently shadowed craters at its poles. By contrast, the surface of hazy Venus sits at a sweltering degrees Fahrenheit year-round, making it the hottest planet in our solar system.
Seen via telescopes and spacecraft, Mercury looks like a battered world covered in overlapping basins, soaring cliffs, and occasional smooth plains. Bright lines called crater rays also crisscross the surface where impacts crushed the rock and kicked up reflective debris. Mercury has no rings, no moons, and a relatively weak magnetic field. It investigated the planet's composition, the structure of its core, and its magnetic field, in addition to capturing global images of the surface in multiple wavelengths.
The mission ended with a planned impact on Mercury's surface in April In , the European Space Agency is set to launch the BepiColombo mission , which will use two orbiters to further study the innermost planet inside and out.
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