Saturday, July 27, 2013

Impact Craters in Mercury's Southern Hemisphere


This image of Mercury's southern hemisphere shows the large size variation and multiple generations of impact craters on Mercury. Mercury's southern hemisphere is easier to image due to MESSENGER's elliptical orbit, but this orbit also prevents acquisition of high resolution images like those taken in the northern hemisphere.

Date acquired: February 08, 2013
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 2613780
Image ID: 3479116
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 9 (996 nanometers)
Center Latitude: -80.38°
Center Longitude: 302.4° E
Resolution: 1486 meters/pixel
Scale: The complex crater in the center of the image is 151 km in diameter (94 miles).
Incidence Angle: 85.0°
Emission Angle: 25.8°
Phase Angle: 59.1°

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

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