Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft - Sodium Tail

Description

As MESSENGER flew toward Mercury on the inbound leg of its trajectory, the spacecraft rotated back and forth about the Sun-Mercury line. This nodding caused the MASCS instrument viewing direction (ie, the direction the instrument is pointed) to move alternately north and south, building up an image in a whiskbroom fashion. At two points, the scanning sequence was briefly interrupted while the spacecraft reoriented to take an image; MASCS observations continued during these times, but the observation direction changed. After all the observations have been processed, they are then converted to an image of the emission intensity. In these images, the color scale indicates relative intensity as a function of spatial position. Credit:NASA

Keywords

aviation, space, computer, video, game, medicine, mechanics, gadget, environment, diy, electronics, Mercury, MESSENGER, spacecraft, Sodium, Tail

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