Rachmaninoff Impact Basin

This is a still image taken from a rotating movie of Mercury's Rachmaninoff impact basin. An enhanced-color image has been draped over a digital elevation model of the surface. The vertical exaggeration is 7 times. The basin's outer rim is about 306 km in diameter and the inner (peak) ring is about 140 km in diameter. The smooth plains within the center appear tan in this presentation, emphasizing their compositional contrast with the dark, bluer rocks that form the peak ring mountains. Images from the Mercury Dual Imaging System on board NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft were processed to provide the color and elevation information used to create this view.

The color base map shown here consists of MDIS images taken through eight different color filters. It is part of a global color map that covers more than 99% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of about 1 kilometer per pixel.

Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 27.8°
Center Longitude: 58° E

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

Note: For a video showing a 360-degree view of this impact basin, click here.