Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Unseen side of Mercury

Mercury

Original - The planet Mercury, as photographed by the MESSENGER probe following its first flyby of the planet on Monday, January 14, 2008. This side of the planet had never before been photographed by a probe.

Alt 1 - In October maybe?

Reason

Stunning astronomy photo, and breaking news (this photo was just on the Main Page). Image page is still protected.

Articles this image appears in

Mercury (Planet), MESSENGER, (currently lots of others since the image is still on the main page)

Creator

NASA, JHUAPL

• Support as nominator Spikebrennan (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Mercury flyby reveals first-ever glimpses of 'hidden hemisphere'--Svetovid (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: Ordinarily my result would be a resounding 'hell yeah!', but since these images are very recent, don't you think it would be more prudent to wait until NASA have released more images from MESSENGER? This is, after all, a brilliant image, but surely within the next two months or so NASA will release a much higher resolution, better quality TIFF like they usually do? This is still quite small for a NASA image, although just within the size guidelines. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 21:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Next Mercury flyby is in October, and PDS releases (calibrated data) generally take a minimum of six months. If there's a higher resolution version (that's not upsampled), then we can simply upload over the original. MER-C 04:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this a valid response? This is speculation about a future event, when we already know that this image is here. I don't think it's possible to vote for a picture that hasn't been taken yet, and I think anybody would advise against it, because you don't know what you're actually going to get. -- I. Pankonin Review me! 12:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support two reasons: high enc, and it's indeed the first. Indeed if a higher res becomes available, then just replace... --Janke | Talk 11:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
• Abstain per Vanderdecken. It's gorgeous, absolutely. We might get something even better. Suggest putting this nomination on hold a little while to see what else is forthcoming? Durova^Charge! 18:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support per nom. de Bivort 20:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose The description should be more detailed. This side of the planet is not unseen from the Earth, like the Far side of the Moon. The article on Mercury states, that most of this side was imaged from the Earth by Arecibo radar in the 2000s, with 5km resolution. While resolution of this image is 10km. Av0id3r (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support The very definition of an FP. --Sharkface217 02:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Another technical triumph for NASA. It is a bland image, not what I would consider among the best of Wikipedia. The Mariner 10 image is much more interesting. Comparing the two, I don't see how this adds any more value to the Mercury (planet) article, or even much to the MESSENGER article. It's just a shadowy, grey lump in space. --Uncle Bungle (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Promoted Image:MESSENGER first photo of unseen side of mercury.jpg MER-C 04:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)