Science - map

Mar

2013

11:33am, EST

NASA's Messenger spacecraft completes first map of Mercury

NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington

Scientists use images from NASA's Messenger spacecraft to create these global views of Mercury, the most complete maps ever. The images were released on Feb. 22.

By Clara Moskowitz
Space.com

The surface of the planet Mercury has been completely mapped for the first time in history, scientists say.

The closest planet to the sun hasn't received as much scientific attention as some of its more flashy solar system neighbors, such as Mars, but NASA's Messenger spacecraft is helping to close the gap. The probe has been in orbit around Mercury since March 2011, and its team announced Feb. 28 that the spacecraft had finished mapping the planet's surface.

"We can now say we have imaged every square meter of Mercury's surface from orbit," said Messenger principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "Admittedly, some regions are in permanent shadow, but we're actually peering into those shadows with our imaging systems."

Before Messenger, less than half the surface had been imaged by NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft, which made several flybys of Mercury in 1974 and 1975. Messenger is the first probe to orbit the planet. In addition to photographing the unseen parts of Mercury, the spacecraft substantially improved on the resolution of existing maps. [Latest Mercury Photos by NASA's Messenger]

"When we set out with the Messenger mission we didn't know if the planet would look like the other half that was seen in the '70s," Solomon told Space.com. "There was a great debate over how important volcanism was in the history of Mercury."

Messenger quickly showed that not only did volcanism occur during Mercury's past, but it might have been widespread.

The spacecraft also revealed never-before-seen types of terrain on the planet, such as surface pockmarks called hollows that scientists suspect are created when volatile materials sublimate off the surface.

"Unstable material is exposed to the temperatures and space environment, and slowly over thousands, maybe millions, of years, it's lost to Mercury's atmosphere and to space, to create a depression or hollow in an area where there are often many such hollows that etch the terrain," Solomon said.

The $446 million Messenger probe (which stands for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) launched in 2004. It made one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus and three flybys of Mercury itself before finally entering orbit around its destination planet in 2011.

The Messenger spacecraft's primary mission ran through March 2012, but it was granted a one-year extension to operate until March 2013. Now the Messenger mission science team is hoping NASA will approve a second mission extension for two more years, that would last until the spacecraft runs out of fuel and crashes into Mercury's surface.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This article was first published on Space.com.

Dec

2011

3:44pm, EST

Map shows when solar power is a bargain

California's investments in renewable energy help make San Diego one of the hottest markets for green jobs in the U.S.

By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News

In 2013, the cost of solar power in San Diego will be cheaper than electricity from the local utility grid, according the predictions of an energy policy analyst who created a handy graphic to illustrate when so-called grid parity will be achieved.

Sam Mircovich / Reuters

A prototype sun tracking solar panel made by Concentrix Solar collects energy from its location at the University of California San Diego in this file photo.

The interactive graphic posted on the Energy Self Reliant States website shows when this moment will be reached in major U.S. cities between now and 2027.

Parity is a "tipping point, when democratization of the electricity system not only makes political and economic sense, but becomes more competitive than using utility-delivered electricity," writes analyst John Farrell.

His calculations assume that the cost of solar will continue to fall by 7 percent a year and grid electricity will rise at 2 percent a year.

If true, then San Diego will be the first to reach the parity milestone, followed by New York in 2015. From there, parity is progressively reached across the southern tier of the U.S. with my cloudy, rainy, northern hometown of Seattle not reaching parity until 2027.

More on solar power:

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Next-gen nuclear plants could provide carbon-free energy, but the painfully slow process of approving better, safer reactors — not to mention real anxiety over meltdowns and waste — threaten to derail projects before they can be built.