Messenger's First Mercury Flyby Scheduled For Today

For those of you just tuning in, the NASA Messenger spacecraft will be doing its first flyby of Mercury today. It's the first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mercury since Mariner 10 in 1974.

I've been seeing contradictory reports about when the closest approach will take place; I've seen both "around noon" and "2:04 PM EST." If anyone has more accurate information, I'd appreciate it.

Messenger is supposed to settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011, but it's scheduled to make two more passes of the planet before then. I'm looking forward to the new science – and the new pictures!

Arisia Schedules

For those of you who are interested, here are the Arisia panel schedules for gnomi and me:

mabfan:
Friday 9 pm "Superman and the Sins of Copyright"
Saturday 10 am "Clark 'Superman' Kent and Bruce 'Batman' Wayne"
Saturday 1 pm "Continuity? What's That?"
Saturday 2 pm "Wouldn't You Like to Be a Superhero?"
Sunday 4 pm "Best Issue and/or Story Arc Ever"

gnomi:
Saturday 12noon "Heat Between the Sheets: Writing/Selling Erotica"
Saturday 4 pm "There's No Star Trek! And No Buffy"
Saturday 5 pm "Knittly, Stitchly, Quiltly"
Sunday 2 pm "LiveJournal and the Nature of Community"
Sunday 3 pm "DVDs Killed the TV Series"
Sunday 5 pm "Why LiveJournal?"