MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

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MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by bystander » Mon Apr 01, 2013 3:32 pm

Active Plume Observed at Mercury
NASA | JHU-APL | CIW | 2013 Apr 01

In a groundbreaking discovery for Mercury science, the MESSENGER spacecraft imaged a plume of material erupting from the surface of the innermost planet. In an MDIS image taken early this morning, a bright source of light may be seen above Mercury’s southern hemisphere. Located at approximately 67°S, 55°E, close to the newly named Alver basin, this light source appears to be an eruptive plume from a previously unrecognized vent.

MESSENGER team members are currently analyzing images of the eruption. One hypothesis under consideration is that the brightness indicates the presence of a “fire fountain,” an eruption during which lava is ejected from depth in a jet-like spray of molten rock. There also appears to be a dimmer cloud of material above the central plume. Under the fire fountain hypothesis, this higher cloud may be composed of smaller droplets of lava of a size that allows them to be blasted to greater altitudes. Most of these droplets will probably fall back to the surface, producing a distinctive “pyroclastic halo” around the vent like those seen elsewhere on Mercury.

An alternative possibility is that the plume is a “geyser” of volatile materials, analogous to the plume at Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Under this scenario, a pocket of volatile-rich material may have been heated by the intrusion of subsurface magma, solar tidal dissipation, or some other process, fueling a geyser-like eruption at the surface. Because of the recent identification of water ice at Mercury’s poles, the MESSENGER team is pursuing the idea that water may be involved in the eruption. Given that possibility and the date of the discovery, the team has already proposed to the International Astronomical Union that the feature be given the name “Poisson d’Avril.”

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
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Ann
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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by Ann » Tue Apr 02, 2013 5:23 am

I read this and didn't react. Oh-oh. My only excuse is that I really don't care much about Mercury, and also (although that is not an excuse) I didn't read the whole text, so I didn't see the suggested name, “Poisson d’Avril,” for the plume.

But of course it had to be a big fat joke. I remember very well the hoopla when ongoing volcanic eruptions were discovered on Io. And Enceladus has received a ton of publicity because of its geysers. And arguably Mercury is much more important than Io or Enceladus - after all, schoolchildren have been learning for decades the name of Mercury, but not the names of Io or Enceladus - so that if Mercury had indeed been found to have an Enceladus-like geyser, this piece of news would have exploded all over the astronomical community.

And the astronomical community is not the only place where the plume would have made a splash. I would have been reading about it in all kinds of non-astronomical newspapers, too. :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: for not thinking about that.

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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by rstevenson » Tue Apr 02, 2013 12:55 pm

Ann, you're not the only one taken in by this. I even glossed over the “Poisson d’Avril” part, since I just assumed it fit in with the general naming scheme for features on Mercury. Much too subtle for those of us who pay little attention to things Mercurial. But funny, in a smack-the-forehead kind of way.

Rob

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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by stephen63 » Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:02 pm

It's amazing how easily a complete load of garbage can be packaged to sell! The explanation even sounded somewhat plausible!

Edit: There is a hypothesis that Mercury actually DOES have a molten core.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May ... rcury.html
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/mercury/

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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:13 pm

stephen63 wrote:It's amazing how easily a complete load of garbage can be packaged to sell! The explanation even sounded somewhat plausible!
It was plausible. Really, this was a bit too subtle, since there wasn't much to suggest a joke except to experts on Mercury. One of the few obvious clues was present in the release, but left out above, "An earlier design of the spacecraft included the Joint Analyzer for Plume Eruptions instrument, intended to collect samples of any plumes active during orbital operations."
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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by MargaritaMc » Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:49 pm

Duh! :oops: :oops: :clap: :clap: :facepalm:

I was totally fooled. Congratulations to NASA/John Hopkins et al...
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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by neufer » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:58 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
stephen63 wrote:
It's amazing how easily a complete load of garbage can be packaged to sell! The explanation even sounded somewhat plausible!
It was plausible. Really, this was a bit too subtle, since there wasn't much to suggest a joke except to experts on Mercury. One of the few obvious clues was present in the release, but left out above, "An earlier design of the spacecraft included the Joint Analyzer for Plume Eruptions instrument, intended to collect samples of any plumes active during orbital operations."
It depends a lot on how one was predisposed to approach this article:
  • 1) Skeptically, since it was posted on "APRIL 1" and was clearly marked "APRIL 1"
    • [along with “poisson d’AVRIL” & the "ALV(e)R (bas)I(n)"]
      • OR
    2) Trustfully, since it appeared like a normal staid Bystander post and was duly credited to:
    • NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.
  • Any lover of Scientific American Magazine & The Skeptics Society
    MUST hold a very high opinion of Michael Shermer & Martin Gardner.
But BOTH of these gentlemen have insisted that YOU MUST believe that the works of Shake-speare
  • were written by an uneducated glover who spent that last 5 years of his life
    in the boondocks, with his illiterate family, suing his neighbors for shilling & pence:
But, then, Martin Gardner's favorite day was always April 1:
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by bystander » Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:53 pm

Actually, I was taken it by this when I first saw it. It wasn't until I was posting that I noticed the “Poisson d’Avril”. The link there was added by me as an aid to those following. All in all, it was a well fashioned joke.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
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Re: MESSENGER: Active Plume Observed at Mercury

Post by geckzilla » Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:06 pm

stephen63 wrote:It's amazing how easily a complete load of garbage can be packaged to sell! The explanation even sounded somewhat plausible!
Clever and harmless. At least it's not convincing thousands of parents to avoid inoculating their children.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Shouting plume in a crowded basin

Post by neufer » Tue Apr 02, 2013 9:56 pm

geckzilla wrote:
stephen63 wrote:
It's amazing how easily a complete load of garbage can be packaged to sell! The explanation even sounded somewhat plausible!
Clever and harmless. At least it's not convincing thousands of parents to avoid inoculating their children.
If you actually lived in the Alver basin you might be of a different opinion.
Art Neuendorffer

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