Face on Mercury

Can you see the face in this image? The two large craters towards the upper corners of this picture make eyes, and the prominent central peak is a perfect nose. It seems our model wasn't prepared for his MDIS photo shoot, as apparent from the perfect "O" mouth. This unnamed land form is part of a large, heavily cratered area in Mercury's northern hemisphere.

This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-incidence-angle base map. The high-incidence-angle base map complements the surface morphology base map of MESSENGER's primary mission that was acquired under generally more moderate incidence angles. High incidence angles, achieved when the Sun is near the horizon, result in long shadows that accentuate the small-scale topography of geologic features. The high-incidence-angle base map was acquired with an average resolution of 200 meters/pixel.

Date acquired: October 04, 2013
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 23174065
Image ID: 4941357
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 7 (748 nanometers)
Center Latitude: 50.32°
Center Longitude: 314.1° E
Resolution: 171 meters/pixel
Scale: The image is approximately 207 km (~129 mi.) across.
Incidence Angle: 79.9°
Emission Angle: 31.4°
Phase Angle: 48.4°
North is down in this image.

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