Enhanced Color Map of Mercury

This colorful view of Mercury is similar to that used to generate this movie [23MB, 6.5MB] of Mercury as a spinning globe, and these two individual views (centered at 140°E and 320°E) of the innermost planet. The enhanced color view is overlaid on the global monochrome base map, which is available for download here.

The enhanced color was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER's primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up Mercury's surface. This specific color combination places the second principal component in the red channel, the first principal component in the green channel, and the ratio of the 430 nm/1000 nm filters in the blue channel.

Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 0°
Center Longitude: 180° E
Map Projection: Simple cylindrical projection
Resolution: 3.74 km/pixel
Scale: Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)

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

Alver Crater

Today's image features a perspective view of the Alver crater, recently named for Estonian poet Betti Alver (1906-1989). Alver's husband was imprisoned and died in Siberia after World War II, leading Alver to stop writing poetry for many years in protest of Soviet rule. She resumed writing poetry in the 1960s, composing the notable 1966 collection Tähetund or "Starry Hour."

To create this image, a portion of the MDIS monochrome basemap was draped over a digital elevation model. The topography has been exaggerated by 5 times to accentuate the crater rim and central peak ring. The view is looking towards the southeast. Alver is a complex crater in the southern hemisphere of Mercury. This perspective view highlights the smooth nature of the basin floor relative to the ejecta blanket and surrounding terrain.

Instrument: Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -67.0°
Center Longitude: 77.9° E
Basemap Resolution: approximately 250 meters/pixel
Digital Elevation Model: Produced by MESSENGER Participating Scientist Bob Gaskell based on MDIS images
Vertical Exaggeration: 5 times actual
Scale: Alver crater is 151.5 km (94.1 miles) across

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

Hurley and L'Engle Craters

Repeat imaging of Mercury's south pole has revealed that a number of craters in the south contain permanently shadowed regions. Because Mercury has only a very small axial tilt, the topography of crater rims, as accentuated in the inset image (shown with five times the vertical exaggeration of the actual topography), blocks sunlight from ever reaching portions of the floors of some polar craters.

This image features two such permanently shadowed craters which were recently named. Hurley crater, named for Australian James Francis Hurley (1885-1962), photographer of the famous Shackleton Expedition to Antarctica, is 67 km (42 mi.) wide and located within 3° of Mercury's south pole. The slightly smaller (62 km or 39 mi. wide) L'Engle crater is located to the east of Hurley. (Note that in the inset perspective image the view is towards the south). L'Engle crater is named for American author Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007), best known for her young-adult novels including 'A Wrinkle in Time'. 'A Wrinkle in Time' blends adventure with quantum physics as it follows young heroine Meg on her journey through space to rescue her scientist father.

This primary image was acquired as part of MDIS's campaign to monitor the south polar region of Mercury. By imaging the polar region approximately every four MESSENGER orbits as illumination conditions change, features that were in shadow on earlier orbits can be discerned and any permanently shadowed areas can be identified after repeated imaging over one solar day. During MESSENGER's one-year primary mission, MDIS's WAC was used to monitor the south polar region for the first Mercury solar day (176 Earth days), and MDIS's NAC made repeated images of the south polar region during the second Mercury solar day. The inset image is a portion of the MDIS monochrome map draped over the Gaskell digital elevation model (with 5 times vertical exaggeration), as was also done for Monday's featured image.

Date acquired: August 03, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 220899377
Image ID: 587366
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 7 (748 nanometers)
Center Latitude: -85.07°
Center Longitude: 67.57° E
Scale: The inset box is about 280 km (174 mi.) wide
Incidence Angle: 85.0°
Emission Angle: 23.4°
Phase Angle: 94.8°

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

Lovecraft and Roerich Craters

Today's image features a perspective view of two of the newly named craters near Mercury's south pole. To create this image, a portion of the MDIS monochrome basemap was draped over a digital elevation model. The topography has been exaggerated by 7 times to accentuate the rugged terrain formed by numerous overlapping craters.

In the foreground, sunlight highlights much of the rim of the dark Lovecraft crater, named for the American horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937). The larger Roerich crater, named for the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), lies slightly to the north of Lovecraft crater. One of Lovecraft's most famous works, 'At the Mountains of Madness' takes place on a scientific expedition to the south pole, and references Roerich's artwork--in particular, his paintings of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayan Mountains. Portions of Lovecraft crater are shrouded in permanent darkness, and host radar-bright material. Similar deposits at the north pole have been associated with water ice and unusually dark material.

Instrument: Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -85.10°
Center Longitude: 284.8° E
Basemap Resolution: approximately 250 meters/pixel
Digital Elevation Model: Produced by MESSENGER Participating Scientist Bob Gaskell based on MDIS images
Vertical Exaggeration: 7 times actual
Scale: Roerich crater is 111.7 km (69.4 miles) across.

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

Mercury

The view shown here is similar to an earlier one, posted in October 2011, but now the coverage is more complete. The globe on the left was created from the MDIS monochrome surface morphology base map campaign. The globe on the right was produced from the MDIS color base map campaign. Each map is composed of thousands of images, and the color view was created by using 3 of the 8 color filters acquired. (1000, 750, and 430 nm wavelengths are displayed in red, green, and blue, respectively.) On March 8, 2013, these global maps will be publicly released at full resolution by NASA's Planetary Data System.

Instrument: Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 0°
Center Longitude: 75° E
Scale: Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles).
Map Projection: orthographic

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

Debussy Crater

Here we have two images of the impact crater named Debussy. The one on the left is from MESSENGER's monochrome base map. The one on the right is a complement from the stereo base map. Because of the differing viewing perspectives, the images can be combined to derive an elevation map (digital terrain model) of the surface.

The left image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map will cover more than 90% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel). Images acquired for the surface morphology base map typically have off-vertical Sun angles (i.e., high incidence angles) and visible shadows so as to reveal clearly the topographic form of geologic features. The right image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution stereo base map. The stereo base map is used in combination with the surface morphology base map to create high-resolution stereo views of Mercury's surface, with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel) or better. During MESSENGER's one-year mission, the surface morphology base map is acquired during the first 176 days, and the second 176 days are used to acquire the complementary stereo base map, which includes the image here.

Left image:
Date acquired: July 31, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 220581440
Image ID: 572963
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -34.04°
Center Longitude: 11.25° E
Resolution: 284 meters/pixel
Incidence Angle: 67.2°
Emission Angle: 35.2°
Phase Angle: 102.4°

Right image:
Date acquired: January 19, 2012
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 235424544
Image ID: 1283627
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -33.95°
Center Longitude: 13.18° E
Resolution: 161 meters/pixel
Incidence Angle: 76.9°
Emission Angle: 23.3°
Phase Angle: 89.2°
Scale: Debussy crater has a diameter of about 80 km (50 mi.)

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