Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
Some nice pictures of SF-inspired concept spacecraft over at Wired. And if you’re into that sort of thing why not check out Memories of the Space Age.
Those were the days, when we had real fake spaceships and it was all-about-the-science.
Messenger, a NASA probe launched towards Mercury, has transmitted the first image of the unseen side of the first planet in our solar system, Mercury. Whilst Mariner 10 did pass Mercury 3 times in the seventies, it never saw this side due to the strange relationship between Mercury’s spin and orbit around the sun. The image is very good quality, with a lighter region in the top right corner believed to be the area of the planet that comes closest to the scorching heat of the sun.
[via Bad Astronomy Blog, picture by NASA]
