The “Other” Flyby
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While we wait for images of the Messenger flyby of Mercury, and by the way, the observation period was to end today at noon and then the transmission of the images can begin. I had to laugh with the line from the press release “Currently, the MESSENGER team is anxiously awaiting the arrival of this dataset.”; I bet they are! I know I am.
The other flyby was done by the Ulysses spacecraft and it did something almost as cool as the Messenger, it flew past the north pole of the Sun!! This flyby is a rarity obviously and this one happens to coincide with the upcoming new solar cycle, and yes, it may be here now.
Some of the interesting tidbits: The north pole of the sun is about 8 percent cooler than the south, if you can call 80,000 oF (44,000 oC) cool. The magnetic fields open up a the poles and allow the wind to stream out at a million miles per hour. The wind also can flow to the equator like it did twelve years ago during the last solar cycle start, and this time the wind is confined to latitudes about 45 degrees.
To read more about the Ulysses flyby, check out the Ulysses web site and I will post images of Mercury as soon as they put something up, you can keep an eye out for images at the Messenger site too.
MESSENGER UPDATE: NASA is reporting the telemetry from the Messenger spacecraft indicates a good flyby and the transfer of over 1,200 images is underway. As you might imagine it will take a while to download everything. They are hoping to have the first images processed in 24 hours.
Image: NASA
Is the transfer really underway? Because according to Emily Lakdawalla, controllers of Ulysses lost contact with the spacecraft and currently the 70m dishes of the DSN are at their disposal and there will be only one image downloaded from MESSENGER.
I have not heard that, I’ll check into it. My information is current as of 5 pm EST.
They are putting priority on one image tonight, subsequent communications should get the rest of the data. So we wait a bit longer that’s all and the good news is the spacecraft is healthy. Thanks for the heads up.