Space In Brief:

Mercury mission ends; 'warp' drive tested

From NASA Reports
Researchers mapped the variations on Mercury’s surface. Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Researchers mapped the variations on Mercury’s surface. Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.
A NASA spacecraft has ended its mission to Mercury with a bang, slamming into the planet's surface at 8,750 mph.

     Mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed the impact of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging), the space agency said.
    The probe hit the side of the planet facing away from Earth, so ground-based telescopes were unable to capture the moment. Space-based telescopes also were unable to view the impact because Mercury’s proximity to the sun would damage optics.
     MESSENGER was operational for more than four years and put in 4,105 orbits around Mercury, according to NASA.
     The spacecraft launched on Aug. 3, 2004, and began orbiting Mercury on March 17, 2011. Although MESSENGER completed its primary science objectives by March 2012, the mission was extended, allowing it to capture images and information about the planet in detail.
     During a final extension of the mission in March, the spacecraft hovered within 5 to 35 kilometers (3 to 21 miles) above the planet’s surface.
     This week, the team executed the last of seven maneuvers that kept MESSENGER aloft long enough for the spacecraft’s instruments to collect information about Mercury’s crustal magnetic anomalies and ice-filled polar craters.
     The MESSENGER mission determined Mercury’s surface composition, revealed its geological history, discovered its internal magnetic field is offset from the planet’s center and verified its polar deposits are dominantly water ice.  

    FASTER THAN LIGHT: With any luck, someday a spaceship commander could seriously deliver the lines: “Take it into warp.”
    OK, so technically, faster-than-light travel is still a dream. But researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center have tested an electromagnetic propulsion drive in a vacuum, according to the website NASA Spaceflight.com.  
    NASA’s advanced propulsion physics laboratory, informally known as Eagleworks, has been pursuing propulsion technologies necessary to “enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50 years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century,” the NASA website says. 

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