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Stories about: Mercury


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New Culprit Identified in the 'Great Dying'

The Permian–Triassic (P-Tr) extinction event was the worst mass dying to affect life in all history. It occurred about 250 million years ago, and scientists thought they had a pretty good idea of the factors that caused it. Yet, a new study managed to identify a culprit that also played a role in the extinction...

7 January 2012
05:56 GMT

Venus and the Moon Join Each Other in the Night Sky

Starting on Monday, December 26, the Moon and the planet Venus paired up in the night sky, and will remain in this position throughout the remainder of the week. This provides skywatchers with a great opportunity to observe both bodies at the same time. Astronomers refer to such a pairing up as a conjunction. In th...

28 December 2011
16:31 GMT

Sun May Weaken Mercury's Magnetic Field

After a long time studying why Mercury's magnetic field is so weak, researchers were finally able to determine that the planet's magnetism is stifled by the solar wind. The effects are so intense because the planet is very close to the star. Studying magnetism at Mercury is so critically important to scie...

23 December 2011
07:52 GMT

New Mercury Pollution Rules to Bring $90bn (€68.99bn) Annually

The plan revealed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), called The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) aims to protect the American families from alarming levels of arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, chromium, and cyanide. The measures marks the beginning of hard times for major polluting power plants...

22 December 2011
10:37 GMT

New iPhone App for 'Safe Sushi' Fans

These days gastronomy goes hand in hand with technology to make sure that people who enjoy tasty treats in high-profile restaurants are not exposed to any threats. The new app was launched by Sierra Club, in an attempt to make sure that sushi ingredients won't follow the already known dangerous trajectory: fr...

13 December 2011
10:29 GMT

Innovative LED to Lighten Sustainable Future

Since we won't be able to find traditional incandescent bulbs in shops starting September 2012, this plan has given green light to a quest aiming to explore the most efficient substitutes. Innovative Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) seem to provide the best answers to this problem and represent the favorite option...

13 December 2011
10:07 GMT

American Power Plants to Comply with Stricter Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency EPA has recently announced it is going to support a stricter set of regulations aiming to control the activity of some of the most polluting US power plants that develop oil and coal-burning operations. The anticipated changes are expected by the end of this week, believed to cur...

13 December 2011
09:00 GMT

Asteroid Collision May Have Changed Mercury's Orbit

Astronomers now propose that Mercury may have been set on its weird orbit by an asteroid impact that occurred a long time ago. The idea came to scientists after noticing that our solar system's innermost planet was not tidally-locked to the Sun. Such a state can be seen on the Moon, which always keeps the same...

12 December 2011
03:59 GMT

Texas Ranks First for Mercury Pollution

Big American power plants keep disrupting the balance of residents, through the overwhelming amount of toxic pollutants they emit, like lead, mercury, nickel or arsenic. The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has managed to identify the first 20 major players responsible for low air quality and has revealed th...

10 December 2011
04:16 GMT

Coronal Mass Ejection Reveals Possibly-Cloaked UFO

As the video embedded at the end of this article will confirm, a skywatcher recently discovered an interesting object near Mercury, apparently moving in the same direction as the planet itself. The unidentified object might very well be an UFO, or it could be a light artifact. YouTube user siniXster says that the vi...

7 December 2011
03:50 GMT

Mercury Poisons Gold-Digging Communities from Developing Countries

Not everything that glitters is gold and no gold-digging process is risk-free. Scientists highlight that goal extraction implies the usage of mercury, presenting long-term risks for 
mine workers and communities located near the sites. This alarming situation made the EU adopt strict regulations and ban the usage o...

18 November 2011
09:52 GMT

NASA Extends Mercury Exploration Mission by 1 Year

The NASA MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission to the innermost planet in our solar system has been extended by a year, officials at the American space agency announce. Originally, the space probe was supposed to cease operations in 2012, but officials decided to grant it ...

17 November 2011
14:01 GMT

Indoor pollution, the Invisible Enemy

Officials from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have affirmed that indoor pollution can have a major influence upon the air quality, damaging our health even more than the sources of outdoor pollution from the most industrialized cities all across the Globe. Independent studies analyzed by experts led to ...

5 November 2011
06:38 GMT

Mercury May Feature Hydrogen Geysers

Ever since the MESSENGER space probe reached the innermost planet in our solar system, earlier this year, researchers have been puzzled by hollows the spacecraft detected on the planet's surface. Experts now propose new ideas to explain the formation. The NASA mission's full name is the MErcury Surface, Sp...

31 October 2011
06:45 GMT

Yukon River Gets Mercury Boost from Permafrost

Investigators at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have recently completed a new study on the origins of elevated mercury concentrations in the Yukon River, one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the world. The team discovered that thawing permafrost was the primary contributor. Naturally-occurring merc...

26 October 2011
02:19 GMT

Explaining the Configurations of Uranus and Mercury

Astronomers have been struggling to explain numerous odd properties displayed by Mercury and Uranus for many years now, but leading theories were just discredited over the past few days. Now, astronomers begin to search for new explanations of what actually happened. This line of inquiry is very difficult to push f...

7 October 2011
09:50 GMT

Solar Winds Sandblast Mercury's Poles

The innermost planet in our solar system is being subjected to a constant beating at all times. Intense solar winds, which are undiluted due to the close proximity between the two bodies, literally sandblast Mercury's poles, triggering phenomena similar to the ones that generate auroras on Earth. The new con...

30 September 2011
20:11 GMT

Mercury Is Covered in Brimstone

In the September 30 issue of the top scientific journal Science, researchers published a series of 7 scientific papers on oddities and interesting features on the surface of the planet Mercury. The new data lead to a better understanding of the innermost planet in the solar system. One of the papers, for example, ...

30 September 2011
03:28 GMT

Ariane 5 Will Deliver ESA Orbiter to Mercury

The NASA Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) space probe will soon get a companion in orbit above the hellish nightmare that is the planet Mercury. The European Space Agency has signed the contract for securing a heavy-lift rocket to get it there. In a ceremony that took place...

15 September 2011
10:32 GMT

OWC Updates Mercury SSDs with New Firmware

OWC released many a storage and memory product over the years, being even one of the main suppliers of SSD upgrades for Apple Mac systems, though its recent announcement speaks of a software product instead of more hardware. Having already, recently, unveiled new DDR3 RAM (random access memory) and solid state dr...

2 September 2011
02:40 GMT

Leaves Bring Mercury Down from the Atmosphere

Scientists with the US Geological Survey (USGS) have calculated that leaves falling off trees in the autumn transfer as much mercury from the atmosphere to the environment as precipitations do.The work was focused on surveying the quantities of hazardous mercury that makes its way into the environment. According to r...

3 August 2011
03:13 GMT

MESSENGER Surveys Mercurial Craters

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft is providing new datasets on the surface of Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system. Unlike Mars or Venus, this object is relatively little understood.The main reason for that is the huge amount of technical difficulties associated with exploring this remote world. Temperatures...

15 July 2011
10:03 GMT

MESSENGER Brings Mercury into the Spotlight

Datasets relayed back to Earth by the NASA MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft are painting an increasingly clearer image of the closest planet to the Sun. Astronomers now know more about the planet than ever before. MESSENGER is the first-ever spacecraft to be injecte...

17 June 2011
04:52 GMT

ESA Prepares BepiColombo for Visit to Mercury

The European Space Agency (ESA) has been working on a spacecraft bound for the innermost planet in our solar system for quite some time now, and finally preparations are starting to yield tangible results.Spacecrafts that want to visit Mercury need to be built in a very special way, given the harsh conditions they wi...

1 June 2011
10:44 GMT

MESENGER Ready to Unlock Mercury's Mysteries

On April 4, the first spacecraft ever to orbit the innermost planet in the solar system will begin its science mission. Experts hope that the suite of instruments aboard the probe will help them get more insight into some of the things that have puzzled astronomers for years. Chiefly among those is whether the pl...

31 March 2011
02:37 GMT

MESSENGER Sends Back First View of Mercury

Less than two weeks after the NASA MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, it managed to send back the first-ever orbital view of the innermost planet in the solar system.The image depicts a dark landscape, that bears the marks of repeated meteorite and asteroid impacts which scarred its surface...

30 March 2011
04:33 GMT

A View of GSFC Instruments on MESSENGER

In early April, the MESSENGER orbiter around Mercury will begin its science operations. Here is a view of the instruments the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, developed for this first-of-a-kind mission.The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe i...

19 March 2011
06:58 GMT

MESSENGER, Alan Shepard Get US Postage Stamps

Only two days after the first spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury, the US Postal Service (USPS) has produced a batch of 30 million postage stamps marking the momentous event. They will be released in pairs, with another unique stamp celebrating Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut in space. The USPS began pri...

19 March 2011
05:14 GMT

MESSENGER Achieves Orbital Insertion Around Mercury

NASA scientists were able to insert the first spacecraft ever into orbit around Mercury, after the probe spent more than 6 years traveling through the inner solar system. MESSENGER achieved the critical mission milestone on Thursday, March 17.During the maneuver, the vehicle had to slow its speed down by about 1,900 ...

18 March 2011
05:31 GMT

MESSENGER Will Reach Mercurial Orbit Tomorrow

Excitement is currently building up at NASA and in the international scientific community over the fact that the first long-term observations spacecraft is about to achieve orbital insertion around Mercury. The innermost planet in our solar system is very little understood at this point, and experts hope that the sp...

16 March 2011
04:30 GMT

MESSENGER Spacecraft To Enter Mercurial Orbit Next Week

Six days from now, a NASA spacecraft is scheduled to become only the second American space probe ever to enter orbit around Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. The event will mark the beginning of a new series of studies, that will answer some very interesting questions about this celestial body.The vehicle launc...

11 March 2011
08:01 GMT

OWC Mercury Rack Pro Provides Up to 12TB of Reliable Storage

On the enterprise market, high storage capacities are often required, so OWC created a new rack mount storage solution that comes with both a high possible storage capacity and a wide set of connectivity capabilities.Many small and medium businesses, when it comes to providing networked storage, resort to a NAS devi...

9 March 2011
03:54 GMT

BepiColombo Will Analyze Mercury from a Low Orbit

The next science mission to Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system, will feature a spacecraft that will attempt to do what has never been done before, survey the planet from a low elliptical orbit. Plans are insert the satellite in an orbit that will take it between 400 and 1,500 kilometers (248 to 932 mil...

31 January 2011
04:31 GMT

Arctic Mercury Cycle Could Be Linked to Ice Cover Extent

In a new scientific study, researchers propose for the first time that the mercury cycle taking place in the Arctic and adjacent areas may have a direct influence on the ice cover extent at and around the North pole. These conclusions were derived from a multi-year joint research effort. The chemical cycles through t...

22 January 2011
05:48 GMT

New Mercury Mapper Passes Heat Test at ESA

Officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the full-scale version of the upcoming Mercury mapper BepiColombo has just been tested at the agency's Large Space Simulator (LSS), the only facility in the world capable of reproducing Mercury's conditions at such a large scale. ESA will lead the...

18 January 2011
11:01 GMT

OWC Announces Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID

Other World Computing decided it was time to provide anyone from consumers to professionals with a so-called desktop hardware RAID storage solution which, in exchange for a hefty price, can pack a very solid storage capacity. At the start of December, Other World Computing revealed that it had expanded its collec...

29 December 2010
02:42 GMT

Dead Sea Air Filled with Oxidized Mercury

A group of scientists has recently determined that the salty chemistry of the Dead Sea is causing interesting effects in the air masses above it. Large amounts of oxidized mercury were discovered to permeate the air, a chemical that is usually encountered in polar regions.Experts conducted the new investigation took ...

30 November 2010
04:02 GMT

OWC Offers Some Variety With New Portable HDD

With all the attention focused around NVIDIA's and AMD's recent announcements, OWC thought it might as well try and offer some variety, so it announced the appearance of a new portable hard disk drive.Most recently, the consumer base has been largely focused on the several updates that NVIDIA and Advanced ...

10 November 2010
06:11 GMT

Low Mercury Levels in Fish Near Coal-Fired Power Plants

Paradoxically, fish that live near coal-fired power plants have lower levels of mercury than fish that live further away, concluded a new study carried out by North Carolina State University.Normally, coal-fired power plants are the main source of mercury air pollution on a global scale, but this new discovery seems ...

6 October 2010
02:52 GMT

Exoplanets Draw Near Their Parent Stars as They Age

A new scientific investigation has revealed that an odd exoplanetary system features members that are drawn to their parent star like moths to candlelight.The finding could be used to derive more data on how this type of systems develop, and also into how planets forming around a new star get distributed around the c...

18 September 2010
04:20 GMT

OWC Brings 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD

Other World Computing has entered the spotlight in order to announce that it has finished development of its latest solid state drive line meant for 'prosumer' desktops and notebooks. Know as the Mercury Extreme Pro, the storage devices. Among all other OWC SSDs, are the most capacious, even while their per...

13 May 2010
08:30 GMT

Apple Approves ‘Replacement’ Browser for iPhone's Safari

Apple seems to be quite offended by Android references in the App Store, but not by developers whose apps' descriptions clearly state that they compete with Safari, the company's web browser. One such application features a description that aims to steer customers clear of Safari, while Apple’s review...

9 February 2010
06:05 GMT

First Complete Map of Mercury Ready

Astronomers can now boast the creation of the first complete map of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun inside our solar system. A large collection of images, gathered by space probes, telescopes and other observatories, went into the creation of the new map, which is the first one to contain all notable features ...

16 December 2009
07:04 GMT

Seasons Change on Mercury, MESSENGER Discovers

The American space agency's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) space probe is currently orbiting around in the inner solar system, on a course that will set it into Mercury's orbit in early 2011. The probe has just recently completed its third and final flyby of the inn...

4 November 2009
03:05 GMT

MESSENGER Catches Unique Solar Flare

The NASA MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe has just recently performed its third flyby of Mercury, and it is currently heading on a course that will allow it to be captured in the planet's orbit in early 2011. As it passed close to the planet after one of its third ap...

27 October 2009
19:31 GMT

MESSENGER Unlocks Mercury's Secret

Recently, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft performed its third and final flyby of the innermost planet in our solar system. The flight was meant to cover the knowledge gaps left behind by the other two flybys, and to finish mapping the remainder of the pl...

22 October 2009
04:32 GMT

Bright Spot on Mercury Gets Close-Up

The third and final flyby that NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft performed around Mercury has revealed a new take on the innermost planet's mysterious bright spot, a feature that astronomers cannot explain yet. It was first discovered during the probe's second flyby, and experts have been hypothesizing on it...

2 October 2009
02:16 GMT

MESSENGER Explores Mercury, Experiences Glitch

Yesterday, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft (MESSENGER) did its third and final flyby of Mercury, before its 2011 orbital insertion date. During the approach, areas of the planet that had never before been imaged were analyzed, but the success of the mission was dimi...

1 October 2009
03:23 GMT

MESSENGER Begins Third Mercury Flyby Today

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe is scheduled to begin its third and final flyby of the closest planet to the Sun today, before pulling a complex, gravity-assist maneuver that will allow for it to be captured in the planet's orbit starting with March 2011...

29 September 2009
05:27 GMT

MESSENGER Prepares for Third and Final Mercury Flyby

In less than a week's time, NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft will perform its third and final flyby of the planet, as well as its last gravity assist maneuver. This will set it on a course that will enable it to be captured in the planet's orbi...

24 September 2009
20:41 GMT


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