Mercury’s “MESSENGER”
Open House Night in Astronomy is Thursday, April 17
Roger Knacke, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the School of Science at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, will host the next Open House Night in Astronomy on Thursday, April 17.
“Sending a MESSENGER to Mercury: A Mission Update” will share the latest research on and photos of the mysterious Mercury beginning at 7:30 p.m. in 101 Otto Behrend Science Building. Admission is free and open to the public; weather permitting, astronomical viewing from the college’s Mehalso Observatory will follow.
On January 14, NASA’s MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to visit Mercury in 33 years, swept by the planet at an altitude of just 125 miles. “Because Mercury is the planet closest to the sun, it is difficult to see and to study,” Knacke said. “This small, hot world still holds many mysteries, like how it can be almost 70 percent iron, and how it was formed so close to the sun.” Knacke also noted that Mercury’s surface records traces of the second-largest impact in all of the solar system. “There was a catastrophic hit by an object estimated to have been 90 miles in diameter that left a crater about 960 miles across. How did that event affect the surface and interior of Mercury?”
MESSENGER will make two more rendezvous with Mercury before settling into orbit around the planet in March 2011.
Open House Nights in Astronomy are a public outreach program the Penn State Behrend School of Science and suitable for a non-technical audience. For more information about the April presentation, contact the school at 814-898-6105.
The School of Science at Penn State Behrend offers eight baccalaureate degree programs, a fifth-year teaching certification and six minors. The school has a pre-professional program option for medical, dental or pharmaceutical studies and has affiliation agreements with Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM), the Penn State College of Medicine, Saint Vincent Health Center, the Temple University School of Dentistry, and the State University of New York, University at Buffalo, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science. Its chemistry program is approved by the American Chemical Society. It is home to the Center for Mathematical Biology and the Mehalso Observatory, and frequently collaborates with Pennsylvania Sea Grant.