Red Mercury

Today's image shows a color view of the southern rim of the Caloris impact basin. The prominent reddish spots are associated with irregular depressions that are thought to be volcanic vents. The reddish deposits are probably formed of pyroclastic material ejected from the vents during explosive eruptions. The images were binned on the spacecraft from their original size of 1024 by 1024 to 256 by 256 pixels in order to manage space on the solid-state data recorder.

Date acquired: July 03, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 218203157
Image ID: 458358
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 996-nm, 559-nm, 433-nm as red-green-blue.
Center Latitude: 13.61°
Center Longitude: 154.4° E
Resolution: 1896 meters/pixel
Scale: The edges of the image are about 490 km (300 mi.) long
Incidence Angle: 14.4°
Emission Angle: 13.5°
Phase Angle: 28.0°

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

Note: The title for this post is a play on another recent post, Blue Mercury.