|
|
|
Farewell to Venus
|
Captio NASA:"After acquiring hundreds of HR images during close approach to Venus, the MESSENGER Spacecraft turned its wide-angle camera back to the Planet and acquired a departure sequence. These images provide a spectacular good-bye to the cloud-shrouded Planet while also providing valuable data to the camera calibration team. The MESSENGER Spacecraft was 60.688 Km (about 37.710 miles) from the Planet at the start of the sequence and 89.310 Km (approx. 55.495 miles) at the end. Initially, images were acquired at a rate of one of every 20', and then as Venus shrank the timing interval was increased to 60'.
The first image was taken on June 6, 2007, at 12:58 UTC (8:58 p.m. EDT on June 5), and the final image on June 7 at 02:18 UTC (10:18 p.m. EDT on June 6). During this 25 h, 20' period the Spacecraft traveled 833.234 Km (about 517.748 miles-more than twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon) with respect to Venus at an average speed of 9,13 Km-per-second (such as 5,67 miles-per-second).
These images represent the last view of Venus by the MESSENGER Spacecraft, but they also point toward the spacecraft's first encounter with Mercury in January 2008".
|
|
(Dettagli)
