Kuniyoshi Crater and Discovery Rupes

The name Kuniyoshi was recently adopted by the International Astronomical Union for the 26.5 km diameter crater near the center of today's image. Utagawa Kuniyoshi was a Japanese painter and printmaker (1798-1861). The subjects of his artwork included landscapes, Kabuki scenes, cats, samurai heroes, and the mythical and supernatural. Kuniyoshi crater is morphologically fresh, with a sharp rim, steep central peak, and impact melt ponds on the floor and near-rim ejecta. To the west of Kuniyoshi is a famous Mercurian lobate scarp, Discovery Rupes.

This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map covers more than 99% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 200 meters/pixel. Images acquired for the surface morphology base map typically are obtained at off-vertical Sun angles (i.e., high incidence angles) and have visible shadows so as to reveal clearly the topographic form of geologic features.

Date acquired: February 25, 2012
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 238701357
Image ID: 1441474
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -57.65°
Center Longitude: 321.8° E
Resolution: 173 meters/pixel
Scale: The edges of the image are about 170 km (105 mi.) long.
Incidence Angle: 65.0°
Emission Angle: 0.7°
Phase Angle: 65.2°

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