Japan's First Probe of Mercutio

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Aims for First Landing on Mercury
Newsday - June 24, 2003, 11:37 PM EDT
TOKYO -- Japan and the European Space are planning a joint mission that would
be the first to land a probe on Mercury, a space official said Wednesday...To escape the searing heat of Mercury's rocky surface.. the probe will land on the dark side..

[Caustic Saint]

Japan and the European Space are planning a joint mission that would be the first to land a probe on Mercury, a space official said Wednesday...To escape the searing heat of Mercury's rocky surface.. the probe will land on the dark side..

...and once the planet rotates the probe into the sunlight it will melt?

[Taro Toporific]

..To escape the searing heat of Mercury's rocky surface.. the probe will land on the dark side..

...and once the planet rotates the probe into the sunlight it will melt?

I had to look it up to double check my old-fart memory was correct but... Mercury always keeps the same face toward the Sun.


See Day and Night on Mercury
... This is because Mercury's rotation around its axis lasts 59 days, and it takes 88 days to move around its orbit around the Sun. ...

[ramchop]

Did you just evade saying your old-fart memory was wrong? :P

The probe will get fried. 88 days from midnight to midday. Does this probe have wheels?, maybe it could drive so it's always on the cold side. Hope it's not solar powered.

[Taro Toporific]

Did you just evade saying your old-fart memory was wrong?
The probe will get fried. 88 days from midnight to midday. Does this probe have wheels?, maybe it could drive so it's always on the cold side. Hope it's not solar powered.

Yeah, I had to turn off the lights in office and make the ocha-girls hold fruit and run circles around my lava lamp to make a scale model simulation of the retrograde motion of Mercutio and Ur-anus.

At the time of closest approach to the Sun, this effect will cause the Sun to move temporarily backwards(!) in the sky. Then it resumes its normal westward motion, and as Mercury moves farther from the Sun, the solar disk begins to shrink in size until sunset, 88 Earth days after sunrise. What a day!

And then, for a period lasting 88 Earth days, it is night for you.

[mercutio]

Yeah, I had to turn off the lights in office and make the ocha-girls hold fruit and run circles around my lava lamp to make a scale model simulation of the retrograde motion of Mercutio and Ur-anus.

Now there is an image!

[Taro Toporific]

Yeah, I had to turn off the lights in office and make the ocha-girls hold fruit and run circles around my lava lamp to make a scale model simulation of the retrograde motion of Mercutio and Ur-anus.

Now there is an image!

...What a day!...
And then, for a period lasting 88 Earth days...

Dang, "a period lasting 88 Earth days'...that is, on the rag for 88 days! Sheeeeeeeeeeeee-t, I think I used to date her.

[Caustic Saint]

Yeah, I had to turn off the lights in office and make the ocha-girls hold fruit and run circles around my lava lamp to make a scale model simulation of the retrograde motion of Mercutio and Ur-anus.

Hopefully you got this on video. I'd hate to have another crazy OL story with no video to back it up.