APOD: The Solar System from MESSENGER (2011 Feb 23)

APOD Robot · Post by **APOD Robot** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:06 am

The Solar System from MESSENGER

Explanation: If you looked out from the center of the Solar System, what would you see? Nearly such a view was taken recently from the MESSENGER spacecraft currently orbiting the Sun from the distance of Mercury. The Sun's planets all appear as points of light, with the closest and largest planets appearing the brightest. The planets all appear to orbit in the same direction and are (nearly) confined to the same great circle around the sky -- the ecliptic plane. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all visible in the above horizontally compressed image, while the positions of Uranus and Neptune are labeled even though they are too faint to make out. Pluto, which has had its planetary status recently called into question, is much too faint to see. Earth's Moon is visible, however, as are the Galilean moons of Jupiter. The above image is the reverse of one taken from the outside of the Solar System in 1990 by Voyager 1. MESSENGER, which has flown by Mercury three times now, is on schedule to enter orbit around the Solar System's innermost planet next month.

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bystander · Post by **bystander** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:48 am

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 29&t=22948

hstarbuck · Post by **hstarbuck** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:59 am

Very cool that we live vicariously through our unmanned spacecraft--Mars, Titan, much more. I guess there's a spacecraft going to the Sun.

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 12:53 pm

: This image shows the current position of the MESSENGER spacecraft, as well as the full orbital path since launch. The image also shows the orbits and current positions of Mercury, Venus and Earth. Positions of stars with magnitude 9 or brighter are shown from this perspective that is above the Sun and north of Earth's orbit.

: From Circus Smirkus performance 2006

biddie67 · Post by **biddie67** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 1:40 pm

Is that the Milky Way just to the left of Mars? Is the ecliptic plane that much at an angle to the MW galaxy plane?

rstevenson · Post by **rstevenson** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 2:21 pm

biddie67 wrote:Is that the Milky Way just to the left of Mars? Is the ecliptic plane that much at an angle to the MW galaxy plane?

Yes, and yes. The plane of the ecliptic is at about a 60° inclination to the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.

Rob

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:04 pm

Reports of APOD displaying a crushed truck have ben split and moved to 'Crushed truck display on APOD download (2011 Feb 23)'

People using the APOD downloader from Asterisk or APOD seem to be experiencing strange behaviour. The image downloaded is a link from within the APOD text, 'horizontally compressed image'.

APOD has not been hacked. This is a problem with the image download. The image being displayed on APOD is the correct 'horizontally compressed image'.

: [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110223.html][b]APOD: The Solar System from MESSENGER (2011 Feb 23)[/b][/url]

This problem was also reported on FB APOD. The person reporting the problem there also had a problem with yesterday's APOD. The downloader program was downlowding the 3D glasses audience image from the link 'APOD readers'.

This has happened before. I don't know the reason, nor can I investigate (the download program doesn't work in Win 7). Is there anybody using this APOD download program who is not experiencing this problem?

raindrop · Post by **raindrop** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:29 pm

Can you explain the location of the planets? Mercury looks like it is too far away. The earth and moon should be closer than Mars but Mars looks further out. This makes no sense to me. What does HORIZONTAL compression mean?

BMAONE23 · Post by **BMAONE23** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:44 pm

raindrop wrote:Can you explain the location of the planets? Mercury looks like it is too far away. The earth and moon should be closer than Mars but Mars looks further out. This makes no sense to me. What does HORIZONTAL compression mean?

Horizontal compression means that they took the
original image

: Click to view full size image

and compressed the left and right margins closer together so it would fit into the screens of most browsers without a scroll bar at the bottom.

: Click to view full size image

The planets are where they appear in respect to the location of the viewpoint (messenger)

: Click to view full size image

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060319.html
note: Jupiter, Mars and Mercury are on the same side of the Sun while Earth in on the other side at the time this chart was produced
The current orientations are slightly different

: Click to view full size image

So it all depends on where you are looking from in this near 360deg panorama
There is even a difference between the July 2002 image and the current image WRT the numbers of "red" Near earth objests and the quantity of "Green" Main Belt objects

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 7:13 pm

: Positions of the planets when the mosaic was acquired

orin stepanek · Post by **orin stepanek** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:18 pm

I don't care: it looks compressed to me.

: Click to view full size image

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:46 pm

: How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? I'm your host, Truman Bradley. Let me show you something interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_Theatre wrote:
Are We Invaded? December 31, 1955
Pat O'Brien, Anthony Eustrel, Leslie Gaye

"That which we do not understand sometimes causes apprehension."
<<A reporter and the daughter of a respected astronomer, watching the stars one evening from their parked car, see what they consider a flying saucer. A stranger appears at the door of the car saying he too saw the light in the sky, and asks if he can be given a lift down the hill into town. Later, the astronomer refuses to believe the couple saw anything more than an optical illusion. To prove the existence of UFOs, the reporter films a documentary of witnesses, while the astronomer promptly demonstrates scientific explanations for each wittnesse's sightings.

But the mysterious stranger has dropped off a photograph at the astronomer's lab- a photograph of our solar system taken from deep space. The stranger has disappeared, but left a forwarding address: Alpha Centauri.>>

Starship Asterisk*