Low Reflectance Impact Crater

Today's image is centered on a large unnamed crater to the northeast of Dali. The crater has been flooded with smooth plains that have a relatively high reflectance and reddish color compared to the average surface of Mercury. The surrounding area, by contrast, has low reflectance and blue color.

Date acquired: July 09, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 218671363, 218671371, 218671365
Image ID: 480913, 480918, 480914
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filters: 9, 7, 6 (996, 748, 433 nanometers) in red, green, and blue
Center Latitude: 47.75°
Center Longitude: 123.5° E
Resolution: 908 meters/pixel
Scale: The edges of the image are about 220 km (136 mi.) long.
Incidence Angle: 51.3°
Emission Angle: 0.4°
Phase Angle: 50.9°
The image was binned on the spacecraft from its original 1024 x 1024 pixel size to 256 square in order to reduce the volume of data that needed to be stored on the recorder and transmitted to Earth.

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