WASHINGTON – NASA will hold a Science Update at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 29, to announce findings and release new images from the Oct. 6 flyby of Mercury by a NASA spacecraft. The briefing will take place in the television studio at NASA Headquarters, located at 300 E Street, S.W., in Washington. It will be carried live on NASA Television.
This second of three planned flybys by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, or MESSENGER, photographed most of Mercury’s remaining unseen surface. The spacecraft passed 125 miles above the planet’s cratered surface, taking more than 1,200 pictures and collecting a variety of data. The flyby provided a critical gravity assist needed for the probe to become, in March 2011, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.
Participants will be:
– Marilyn Lindstrom, program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington
– Brian Anderson, deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
– Ronald Vervack, Jr., participating scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
– Maria Zuber, co-investigator and head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
– Mark Robinson, co-investigator and professor at Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration
Reporters may ask questions from participating NASA locations. Reporters also may listen or ask questions by phone. To reserve a phone line, contact Steve Cole on 202-358-0918. For information about NASA TV, streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:
For more information about the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/messenger
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Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov