Crater Chain

This view shows a remarkable line of secondary craters, formed by a set of similar-sized blocks thrown out by the impact that formed an unnamed 150-km diameter crater, whose rim is just to the southeast of the lower right end of the crater chain. The individual secondary craters in the chain are each about 4 to 6 km wide. The uniformity of the size of these secondaries and their arrangement in a line nearly radial to the center of the primary crater hint at the complex physics involved in the impact process.

Date acquired: January 20, 2012
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 235551551
Image ID: 1289763
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -35.87°
Center Longitude: 19.45° E
Resolution: 175 meters/pixel
Scale: The scene is about 211 km (130 mi.) wide.
Incidence Angle: 68.3°
Emission Angle: 36.1°
Phase Angle: 97.3°

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