6:30 p.m. Free planetarium show: Cosmic Collisions and educational activities
7:30 p.m. Meet the Lecturer
8:00 p.m. Lecture
9:00 p.m. Telescope viewing, weather permitting
Until recently, Mercury was the least explored of the terrestrial planets, visited only by Mariner 10 in the 1970s. MESSENGER flybys in 2008 and 2009 revealed terrain seen by spacecraft for the very first time. In March 2011, as MESSENGER goes into orbit, it will open a new era of comprehensive observation and study of the innermost planet, and continue to contribute to our understanding of the nature of Mercury and why it is different from its planetary neighbors. See Mercury in a new light as Sean Solomon guides us through the latest images and results.
Sean C. Solomon is the Principal Investigator for the MESSENGER mission and the Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
This program is made possible by the generous support of Aerojet and NASA.This mosaic shows the planet Mercury as seen by Mariner 10 as it sped away from the planet on March 29, 1974. The mosaic was made from over 140 individual TV frames taken about two hours after encounter, at a range of 37,300 miles (60,000 kilometers). North is at top. The limb is at right, as is the illuminating sunlight. The equator crosses the planet about two-thirds of the way from the top of the disc. The terminator, line-separating day from night, is about 190 degrees west longitude. The planet shows a gibbous disc-more than half-illuminated. This hemisphere is dominated by smooth plains, rather than heavily cratered terrain, and resembles portions of the Moon's maria in general shape. Half of a very large, multi-ringed basin named Caloris Basin appears near the center of the disc near the terminator. Its surrounding mountain ring is 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) in diameter.