Kevin's Watch

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5577224/

Mercury is a planet that is fascinating to me because of its proximity to the sun. How it survives that close to such a raging furnace is amazing. When I first started learning about Mercury I thought that we might never get a really good look at the planet. Mariner 10 gave us a tantalizing tidbit with its flyby, Messenger however is set to orbit the planet and gather data from all sides for a year. I'm looking forward to finally getting some solid information. Good luck, Messenger.

I hope Arthur C. Clarke sticks around for Messenger's arrival at Mercury. In Rendezvous With Rama, he envisioned that humankind had already colonized the planet. He called them "Hermians." He wrote this tantalizing bit:

Long before men reached the planet, Mercury's abnormal density hinted at the heavy elements it contained; even so, its wealth was a source of astonishment, and had post-poned for a thousand years any fears that the key metals of human civilization would be exhausted. And these treasures were in the best possible place, where the power of the Sun was ten times greater than on frigid Earth.

That was 1973. I wonder what Messenger will have to say.

The spacecraft cannot fly straight to Mercury; it does not carry nearly enough fuel. So it will fly once past Earth, twice past Venus and three times past Mercury for gravity assists — and make 15 loops around the sun — before slowing enough to slip into orbit around the small, hot planet.

To me this is the really cool part - all of these complex fly-bys and loops and circuits. Thank you, Messrs. Newton and Keppler.

yeah, talk about complicated:

messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/trajectory.html