{"id":9416,"date":"2011-03-15T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=9416"},"modified":"2014-05-22T13:34:28","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T18:34:28","slug":"get-a-closer-look-at-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/9416-get-a-closer-look-at-mercury\/","title":{"rendered":"Get A Closer Look At Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Image courtesy of NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’re an OWC customer, you likely own an OWC Mercury drive\u2026whether it be an optical<\/a> or hard disk drive solution<\/a>\u2026.or a high-performance SSD<\/a>. As the theme of this post is a closer look at Mercury (the planet)<\/a>, I thought I’d first give you a little history on how the name Mercury was chosen for our drive line…then blast off into the really cool space stuff.<\/p>\n

As you may remember from past posts about space related topics, our founder and CEO, Larry O’Connor<\/a> started what you know today as OWC back in 1988. Its first branded product was a processor upgrade called the OWC Rocket. In 2000, the Mercury Classic Elite<\/a> was born. And then nearly every year since, we’ve come up with another drive under that banner name. Larry has always been fascinated by all things space related and when I asked him how he chose Mercury for our drive line, he said it “was a combination of aspects….the Roman God who was known for speed, the NASA program<\/a> which launched the first Americans into space, and the uniqueness of the planet itself.”<\/p>\n

Speaking of the planet’s uniqueness, were you aware that this Thursday you’ll have a first-of-its-kind opportunity to see it up close? Really close?<\/em><\/p>\n

How does 125 miles away from a surface that can heat up to 800\u00b0F when facing the sun grab ya? Hopefully, there\u2019s a happy medium somewhere; on the opposite side, it can dip down to -300\u00b0F.<\/p>\n

Not to worry though; providing you this closer-than-ever-before-available\u00a0look is a NASA probe called Messenger<\/a>\u2014which stands for ME<\/strong>rcury S<\/strong>urface, S<\/strong>pace EN<\/strong>vironment, GE<\/strong>ochemistry, and R<\/strong>anging.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the mission is to enable scientists to better understand how Mercury was formed, how it evolved, and how it generated its magnetic field. More to the point, scientists have six key questions<\/a> on the second most dense planet in our solar system.<\/p>\n

Now before you launch into the mission, and perhaps even interact with NASA on it via live chat (see info at end of post), here\u2019s my CliffsNotes<\/a> take on what you should know about Mercury, Messenger, and why this information matters:<\/p>\n