Mercury Updates

Historic planetary instability and catastrophe. Evidence for electrical scarring on planets and moons. Electrical events in today's solar system. Electric Earth.

Moderators: MGmirkin, bboyer

Locked
User avatar
nick c
Site Admin
Posts: 2483
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:12 pm
Location: connecticut

Re: EDM on Mercury caught by MESSENGER

Unread post by nick c » Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:47 pm

The glow is very interesting. It reminds me of the [url2=http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... scrat.html]Aristarchus[/url2] area on the Moon, a site of numerous reports of [url2=http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~arlin/TLP/]Transient Lunar Phenomena[/url2] (TLP). This could be a Mercurian version: Transient Mercurian Phenomena (TMP) ;)

I don't know that we should say that the crater is in the process of being excavated by EDM. The crater is probably older and was excavated by an EDM process many orders of magnitude greater than what is causing the shiny area in the photo:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sci ... 8M_raw.jpg

Also, it appears that the shiniest area is on the hill or mountain in front of the crater and the area between the adjacent large crater.
Is this perhaps higher ground?
Could be (as Lloyd mentioned) comparable to St. Elmo's fire?
Either way mainstream theory has a problem with a supposed 4 billion year old Mercury.

nick c

User avatar
MattEU
Posts: 367
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:00 am
Contact:

bright and dark sides of moons

Unread post by MattEU » Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:32 am

This has been brought to my attention thanks to a post on the new super ring around Saturn. Iapetus is a moon of Saturn and has one dark side (area) and one bright side (area). The dark side of Iapetus is found on its leading edge while the light side is found on its trailing edge. Is it related in any way to the bright area of Mercury?
The discovery may help solve an age-old riddle of one of Saturn's moons. Iapetus has a strange appearance -- one side is bright and the other is really dark, in a pattern that resembles the yin-yang symbol...

Saturn's newest addition could explain how Cassini Regio came to be. The ring is circling in the same direction as Phoebe, while Iapetus, the other rings and most of Saturn's moons are all going the opposite way. According to the scientists, some of the dark and dusty material from the outer ring moves inward toward Iapetus, slamming the icy moon like bugs on a windshield.

"Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus," said Hamilton. "This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship."
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Discovers Largest Ring Around Saturn


Image
image shows Iapetus moon with its dark side or areas of Cassini Regio and its light side or areas of Roncevaux Terra

Image
diagram shows Saturns moon Iapetus with its dark side or areas of Cassini Regio and its light side or areas of Roncevaux Terra as it orbits round Saturn
In many places, the dark material--thought to be composed of nitrogen-bearing organic compounds called cyanides, hydrated minerals and other carbonaceous minerals--appears to coat equator-facing slopes and crater floors. The distribution of this material and variations in the color of the bright material across the trailing hemisphere will be crucial clues to understanding the origin of Iapetus' peculiar bright-dark dual personality.
The Other Side of Iapetus

Amazingly, the dark material covers precisely the side of Iapetus that leads in the direction of orbital motion around Saturn (except for the poles), whereas the bright material occurs on the trailing hemisphere and at the poles...

Though we know a little about the dark terrain's chemical nature, we do not understand its origin. Two theories have been developed, but neither is fully satisfactory--(1) the dark material may be organic dust knocked off the small neighboring satellite Phoebe and "painted" onto the leading side of Iapetus as the dust spirals toward Saturn and Iapetus hurtles through the tenuous dust cloud, or (2) the dark material may be made of icy-cold carbonaceous "cryovolcanic" lavas that were erupted from Iapetus' interior and then blackened by solar radiation, charged particles, and cosmic rays
Iapetus Bright and Dark Terrains

Electroplating or EU activity? Strange why the poles do not have the dark material in a Gravity Universe.


The Moon

Image
The dark and light areas of the Moon

Iapetus has a dark and light side, could this also be related in anyway to the bright and dark areas on our Moon or start to explain how they could have or maybe still are being formed?

mharratsc
Posts: 1405
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:37 am

Re: EDM on Mercury caught by MESSENGER

Unread post by mharratsc » Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:27 am

I'm probably having a Low Coffee moment, but someone help me understand this a little better please..

On Earth, positive ionic deposition occurs at the poles due to our dipolar magnetic field, and electron scavenging occurs equatorially. These positive ions are supplied by the Sun, and presumably are mostly hydrogen.

Would hydrogen arriving at the top of the atmosphere at the poles possibly account for the bright, shiny ice caps that we have?

On Iapetus, half of the moon is dark and half light, much like our own moon. Iapetus is dark on it's leading face, whereas our moon is dark on the side facing us.

Here's where it gets fuzzy for me- are the moons receiving positive ionic deposition on their brighter faces from the Sun? Or are they receiving negative ionic deposition on the darker faces from their parent planets? Or both? :\

I always thought that- at least on Luna- the darker areas were craters and seas, which makes me think that those could only be areas in which material had been scavenged. All solar bodies maintain a negative charge in relation to the Sun, correct?
Also, aren't these moons part of the 'return circuit' to the Sun? Aren't they therefore going to be receiving negative ions from the parent planets as the scavenged electrons try to make their way sunward? But then how do you account for the craters and seas if metallic depostions are landing on this side of the moon?

I think I'm mssing a piece of this puzzle, I think. :\

I want to finally get this straight, so if any of you bright bulbs wanna shine some light on this for me, I would sincerely appreciate it! :)

Mike H.
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

Lloyd
Posts: 4433
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: EDM on Mercury caught by MESSENGER

Unread post by Lloyd » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:46 am

* A number of TPODs have suggested that dark surfaces on solid bodies are a result of electric discharge scorching the surface. For example, see the end of this TPOD: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/ ... 6butte.htm and see the following.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=site%3At ... 2e99206b9c
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=site%3At ... 2e99206b9c

seasmith
Posts: 2815
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 6:59 pm

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by seasmith » Sun Oct 11, 2009 10:58 am


mharratsc
Posts: 1405
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:37 am

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by mharratsc » Sun Oct 11, 2009 1:54 pm

From http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sci ... age_id=349
Evidence of Volcanism on Mercury: It's the Pits
Release Date: October 9, 2009
Topics: Mercury Flyby 3, NAC, Volcanism

Date Acquired: September 29, 2009
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 162744290
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 390 meters/pixel (0.24 miles/pixel)
Scale: This image is about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from top to bottom
Spacecraft Altitude: 15,200 kilometers (9,400 miles)

Of Interest: Some impact craters on Mercury have non-circular, irregularly shaped depressions or pits on their floors. Such craters have been termed pit-floor craters, and MESSENGER team members have suggested that such pits formed by the collapse of subsurface magma chambers. If this suggestion is correct, the pits are evidence of volcanic processes at work on the Solar System's innermost planet. With high-resolution images from MESSENGER’s third Mercury flyby, more pit-floor craters are being identified on Mercury's surface. This NAC image shows a good view of a pit-floor crater imaged last week prior to closest approach. The large crater near the center of the image contains an elongated bean-shaped depression on its floor and is a pit-floor crater. The slightly smaller crater to the south also contains a pair of depressions on its floor, though from this image alone it cannot be determined if the depressions are pits or overlapping impact craters. Other examples of pit-floor craters discovered in MESSENGER images include Beckett, Gibran, and another newly imaged crater from Mercury flyby 3.


Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
(highlight by me)

From the looks of things, they still can't shake that old electrically-impotent view of the Universe... but they're starting to be a little bit more careful to phrase their thoughts in 'suggested's and 'if correct's than they have in the past! :lol:

Mike H.
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

seasmith
Posts: 2815
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 6:59 pm

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by seasmith » Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:23 am

Image

Nov. 3, 2009:
The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail.... Nov. 3, 2009: The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail.
The observations also show that calcium and magnesium in the exosphere exhibit different seasonal changes than sodium--a difference that researchers do not yet fully understand.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009 ... ist1066595

jjohnson
Posts: 1147
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:24 am
Location: Thurston County WA

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by jjohnson » Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:06 am

In case anyone else is wondering, the scale of two images is likely Mercury's radius. If so, the Mercury image on the distribution graph is about 2X oversized, probably to avoid age discrimination among the reading populace like me who don't see as well anymore. Wonder if the red sodium ion field is to scale, or if the planet partially occludes it. No mention in the press release about correlation with the solar wind or the current extended minimum, which would have been interesting, possibly useful.
What else would be useful would be running measurements of ion and electron densities and direction and the E/M field characteristics from a measurement satellite around Mercury, this close to the Sun. Doh! If the solar wind density is inversely proportional to the square of its distance from the Sun, it should be about 6.7 times as dense at Mercury as at Earth, where we DO have measurements with which one could compare.

User avatar
MattEU
Posts: 367
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:00 am
Contact:

mercury - exactly as not predicted

Unread post by MattEU » Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:07 pm

i think this is a great article, especially the neutral/charged atoms, calcium and the night/shadow side of mercury.

its amazing, science seems to have predicted the exact opposite to what is found. perhaps nature does not know what its meant to do? perhaps it would be better for science if we got paul the octopus to help them predict things.

the full article has stuff on the "volcanoes" that might be interesting but i have not included that.
"Every time we've encountered Mercury, we've discovered new phenomena," says MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon, of Carnegie's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. "We're learning that Mercury is an extremely dynamic planet, and it has been so throughout its history. Once MESSENGER has been safely inserted into orbit about Mercury next March, we'll be in for a terrific show."

Magnetic substorms are space-weather disturbances that occur intermittently on Earth, usually several times per day, and last from one to three hours. Terrestrial substorms are accompanied by a range of phenomena, such as the majestic auroral displays seen in the Arctic and Antarctic skies. Substorms are also associated with hazardous energetic particle events that can play havoc with communications and Earth-observing satellites, particularly at the altitudes of geosynchronous orbits. Terrestrial magnetic substorms are powered by magnetic energy stored in Earth's magnetic tail.

During MESSENGER's third Mercury flyby, the Magnetometer documented for the first time the substorm-like build-up, or "loading," of magnetic energy in Mercury's magnetic tail. The increases in energy that MESSENGER measured in Mercury's magnetic tail were very large, by factors of two to three, and they occurred very quickly, lasting only two to three minutes from beginning to end. These increases in tail magnetic energy at Mercury are about 10 times greater than at Earth, and the substorm-like events run their course about 50 times more rapidly.

"The extreme tail loading and unloading observed at Mercury implies that the relative intensity of substorms must be much larger than at Earth," says lead author James A. Slavin, a space physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a member of MESSENGER's Science Team. "However, what is even more exciting is the correspondence between the duration of tail field enhancements and the Dungey cycle time, which describes plasma circulation through a magnetosphere.

"With these new MESSENGER measurements we can show for the first time that the Dungey plasma circulation time determines substorm duration at another planet and not just at Earth, suggesting that this relation may be a universal feature of terrestrial-type magnetospheres, Slavin says. "A key aspect of tail unloading during terrestrial substorms is the acceleration of energetic charged particles, but no acceleration signatures were seen during the MESSENGER flyby. It appears that this new mystery will not be solved until more extensive measurements are made when MESSENGER is in orbit about Mercury."

Mercury's exosphere is a tenuous atmosphere of atoms and ions derived from the planet's surface and from the solar wind. Observations of the exosphere provide a window into the extensive interactions between Mercury's surface and its space environment. The insights such observations provide into surface composition, transport of material about the planet, and loss of material to interplanetary space improve our understanding not only of the current state of Mercury but also of its evolution.

he spacecraft's observations of Mercury's exosphere indicate remarkably different spatial distributions among the neutral and ionized elements in the exosphere. The third flyby produced the first detailed altitude profiles of exospheric species over the north and south poles of the planet. "These profiles showed considerable variability among the sodium, calcium, and magnesium distributions, indicating that several processes are at work and that a given process may affect each element quite differently," says MESSENGER participating scientist and lead author Ron Vervack, also at the Applied Physics Laboratory.

Differences in the distributions of sodium, calcium, and magnesium were also observed anti-sunward of the planet. "A striking feature in the near-planet tail ward region is the emission from neutral calcium atoms, which exhibits an equatorial peak in the dawn direction that has been consistent in both location and intensity through all three flybys," Vervack says. "The exosphere of Mercury is highly variable owing to Mercury's eccentric orbit and the effects of a constantly changing space environment. That this observed calcium distribution has remained relatively unchanged is a complete surprise."

Prominent among the discoveries during the third flyby were the first observations of emission from ionized calcium in Mercury's exosphere. "The emission was concentrated over a relatively small area one to two Mercury radii anti-sunward of the planet with most of the emission occurring close to the equatorial plane," says Vervack. "This concentrated distribution cannot be explained by in situ conversion of local calcium atoms to calcium ions and instead points to magnetospheric transport of the ions as a mechanism for concentrating them as observed. Although such transport is common in planetary magnetospheres, the degree to which it can affect the distribution of species in Mercury's exosphere was not fully appreciated."

More information: Additional information is available online at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby3.html

New revelations about Mercury's volcanism, magnetic substorms, exosphere from MESSENGER
http://www.physorg.com/news198394772.html

User avatar
StefanR
Posts: 1371
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:31 pm
Location: Amsterdam

Mercury found to have comet-like appearance

Unread post by StefanR » Thu Sep 23, 2010 3:54 am

Mercury found to have comet-like appearance by satellites looking at sun

Scientists from Boston University’s Center for Space Physics reported today that NASA satellites designed to view the escaping atmosphere of the Sun have also recorded evidence of gas escaping from the planet Mercury. The scientists reported these findings at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) meeting in Rome, Italy this week.

The STEREO mission has two spacecraft, in orbits just inside and outside the earth's orbit around the Sun, and thus increasingly ahead and behind the earth (STEREO, or Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program). This configuration offers multi-directional views of the electrons and ions that make up the escaping solar wind. On occasion, the planet Mercury appears in the field of view of one or both satellites. In addition to its appearance as a bright disk of reflected sunlight, a “tail” of emission can be seen in some of the images. The announcement of this new method of observing Mercury and possible explanations for the nature of the gases that make up this tail were presented today at the EPSC.

It has been known that Mercury exhibits comet-like features, with a coma of tenuous gas surrounding the planet and a very long tail extending in the anti-sunward direction. From Earth, observations of both of these features can be done using light from sodium gas sputtered off the surface of Mercury. The Sun’s radiation pressure then pushes many of the sodium atoms in the anti-solar direction creating a tail that extends many hundreds of times the physical size of Mercury. “We have observed this extended sodium tail to great distances using our telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas,” Boston University graduate student Carl Schmidt explained, “and now the tail can also be seen from satellites near Earth.” Much closer to Mercury, several smaller tails composed of other gases, both neutral and ionized, were found by NASA’s MESSENGER satellite as it flew by Mercury in its long approach to entering into a stable orbit there.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 092210.php
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/22/t ... like-tail/
The illusion from which we are seeking to extricate ourselves is not that constituted by the realm of space and time, but that which comes from failing to know that realm from the standpoint of a higher vision. -L.H.

flyingcloud
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:07 am
Location: Honey Brook

Re: Mercury found to have comet-like appearance

Unread post by flyingcloud » Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:40 am

LLNL gamma ray spectrometer aboard spacecraft due to start orbiting around Mercury

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-lln ... board.html

User avatar
StefanR
Posts: 1371
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:31 pm
Location: Amsterdam

Re: Mercury found to have comet-like appearance

Unread post by StefanR » Wed Mar 16, 2011 7:48 am

great stuff FlyingCloud!

Perhaps a moderator might be so kind to help and merge this stump with this thread?:

Mercury Updates
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... 0&start=45
The illusion from which we are seeking to extricate ourselves is not that constituted by the realm of space and time, but that which comes from failing to know that realm from the standpoint of a higher vision. -L.H.

flyingcloud
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:07 am
Location: Honey Brook

Re: Mercury found to have comet-like appearance

Unread post by flyingcloud » Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:01 am

that's the one I was looking for thanks Stefan! :D

User avatar
StefanR
Posts: 1371
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:31 pm
Location: Amsterdam

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by StefanR » Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:37 pm

flyingcloud wrote:that's the one I was looking for thanks Stefan! :D
No problem Flyingcloud. Thanks to your search we both seem to have killed two flies with one hit.
On the first page GreyCloud suggested already a good idea about more concentrating certain subjects and
Dave was so kind to point out it has its particular difficulties. But perhaps there might be an idea to perhaps
"clean up" this planetary-board just a little bit by very carefully placing/adding some of these one or two posts long threads into an, of course appropriate, longer thread. Sometimes valuable information which is posted might then be easier to retrieve or find.

i would like to thank the moderator who assisted so kindly in his action in this thread. Perhaps we as posters could help in a way in indicating if a short thread might be added to a more comprehensive one. As can be seen in the Abiotic-oil discussion so marvelously build up by Anaconda & co. it can give a one heck of an compendium of information in one discussion-thread which is a joy to read.

Apologies for the off-topic rant from my side and once more thanks to the moderator.

Game on! ;) :D
The illusion from which we are seeking to extricate ourselves is not that constituted by the realm of space and time, but that which comes from failing to know that realm from the standpoint of a higher vision. -L.H.

flyingcloud
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:07 am
Location: Honey Brook

Re: Mercury Updates

Unread post by flyingcloud » Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:13 pm

I concur, especially when the key search words are too common and the refined search is a bit too exclusive.

great suggestion with the abiotic oil topic too, spot on

Locked

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests