Rupes

Today's image features a scarp, or cliff face, which is longer than the 77 km shown in this frame. Scarps form as one block of crust is thrusted forward over another, which can result from the cooling of the planet's interior causing global contraction. On Mercury, scarps are called "rupes," which is Latin for cliff.

This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 200-meter/pixel morphology base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution, but typically several areas of high scientific interest are imaged in this mode each week.

Date acquired: July 08, 2013
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 15627633
Image ID: 4404792
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 20.47°
Center Longitude: 141.0° E
Resolution: 51 meters/pixel
Scale: Image width is about 65 km (40.4 miles)
Incidence Angle: 83.4°
Emission Angle: 38.9°
Phase Angle: 45.4°

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