Rayed Impact Crater

Fresh and bright, this unnamed, elongated crater appears to have been formed by an impactor that struck the surface at an oblique angle, causing most of the ejecta to be thrown out unevenly around the crater (notice the bright rays above, below, and to the right of the crater). The marginally bright material in the bottom left corner is actually part of a ray from Hokusai, over 1380 km (about 860 mi.) away!

This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted color observation. Targeted color observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions higher than the 1-kilometer/pixel 8-color base map. During MESSENGER's one-year primary mission, hundreds of targeted color observations were obtained. During MESSENGER's extended mission, high-resolution targeted color observations are more rare, as the 3-color base map covered Mercury's northern hemisphere with the highest-resolution color images that are possible.

Date acquired: August 19, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 222275999, 222275995, 222275991
Image ID: 652862, 652861, 652860
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: 27.84°
Center Longitude: 30.73° E
Resolution: 116 meters/pixel
Scale: The small bright crater measures about 13 km (8 mi.) in long dimension.
Incidence Angle: 31.1°
Emission Angle: 37.2°
Phase Angle: 68.3°

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