Shakespeare Impact Basin

For Valentine's Day, it seems appropriate to feature Shakespeare basin, named for the English poet and playwright and author of a famous collection of sonnets, some focusing on love. "Shall I compare thee" to other large basins on Mercury? If so, check out Rembrandt, Tolstoj, Rachmaninoff and Beethoven.

This mosaic was assembled from eight images that were acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map will cover more than 90% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel). Images acquired for the surface morphology base map typically have off-vertical Sun angles (i.e., high incidence angles) and visible shadows so as to reveal clearly the topographic form of geologic features.

Date acquired: April 26 - 28, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 212372542, 212415875, 212416002, 212459333, 212459461, 212459565, 212502921, 212503025
Image ID: 181841, 183945, 183946, 185952, 185953, 185954, 188123, 188124
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 7 (748 nanometers)
Center Latitude: 48.5°
Center Longitude: 208° E
Resolution: 240 meters/pixel
Scale: Shakespeare basin has a diameter of 400 km (250 miles)
Incidence Angle: 73°
Emission Angle: 0.6°
Phase Angle: 75°

Photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington