Messenger's Flyover Video

This movie consists of 214 images acquired by MESSENGER's Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) on June 8, 2014. The NAC field of view looks toward the horizon along the direction of spacecraft motion as the probe crossed the terminator into night. This view is what a traveler on the MESSENGER spacecraft might see during low-altitude operations over the next eight months. During the final phase of its mission, MESSENGER's science instruments will use low-altitude operations like this to explore the surface and subsurface of Mercury at unprecedented resolution.

The image frames were taken once per second while MESSENGER was at altitudes ranging from 115 to 165 kilometers, traveling at a speed of 3.7 kilometers per second relative to the surface. The movie is sped up by a factor of seven for ease of viewing. The images have resolutions ranging from 21 to 45 meters/pixel. Higher-resolution images of Mercury's surface are possible if the camera is pointed directly below the spacecraft rather than looking to the horizon, and such operations are the routine approach for low-altitude imaging. To observe an aerial view of MESSENGER's flight path, see PIA18637. To look closely at the flight path imagery, see PIA18636.

Date acquired: June 8, 2014
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 44519827-44520005
Image ID: 6458912-6459090
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Initial Center Latitude: 77.2°
Initial Center Longitude: 78.1° E
Final Center Latitude: 79.2°
Final Center Longitude: 193.6° E
Resolution: 21 meters/pixel-45 meters/pixel
Scale: The first image is approximately 10.5 km (6.5 miles) across
Incidence Angle: 80.0°-87.6°
Emission Angle: 78.4°-83.5°
Phase Angle: 66.3°-66.4°

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

Ride Along With Messenger (Video 2)

This movie was assembled from 289 individual NAC images. Most of the images were acquired four seconds apart, the fastest that MDIS is capable of taking full resolution images, but this movie is shown with 15 images per second. The movie begins centered on the 191-km diameter Schubert basin.

These images were acquired as part of the NAC ride-along imaging campaign. When data volume is available and MDIS is not acquiring images for its other campaigns, high-resolution NAC images are obtained of the surface. These images are designed not to interfere with other instrument observations but take full advantage of periods during the mission when extra data volume is available.

Date acquired: October 04, 2013
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 23236906-23238062
Image ID: 4945775-4946063
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Initial Center Latitude: -42.67°
Initial Center Longitude: 306.1° E
Final Center Latitude: -50.20°
Final Center Longitude: 311.9° E
Resolution: 176-199 meters/pixel
Scale: The first image is 179 kilometers (111 miles) across
Incidence Angle: 74.3°-79.9°
Emission Angle: 3.6°-0.8°
Phase Angle: 77.9°-79.4°

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

Ride Along With Messenger (Video 1)

This movie was assembled from 284 individual NAC images. Most of the images were acquired four seconds apart, the fastest that MDIS is capable of taking full resolution images, but the movie is shown with 15 images per second. In the second half of the movie, Mirni Rupes can be seen in the top right.

These images were acquired as part of the NAC ride-along imaging campaign. When data volume is available and MDIS is not acquiring images for its other campaigns, high-resolution NAC images are obtained of the surface. These images are designed not to interfere with other instrument observations but take full advantage of periods during the mission when extra data volume is available.

Date acquired: October 04, 2013
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 23235568-23236706
Image ID: 4945491-4945774
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Initial Center Latitude: -33.79°
Initial Center Longitude: 310.4° E
Final Center Latitude: -43.43°
Final Center Longitude: 324.6° E
Resolution: 145-174 meters/pixel
Scale: The first image is 148 kilometers (92 miles) across
Incidence Angle: 75.7°-87.7°
Emission Angle: 3.0°-15.2°
Phase Angle: 72.6°-72.5°

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

A Tribute to Messenger

This video showcases a small sampling of the thousands of images taken by the spacecraft, as well as animations illustrating how MESSENGER moves in orbit and how its orbit has changed during the mission.

The opening sequence is from the approach images from the first flyby in 2008. The first animation to follow (at 0:15) shows MESSENGER in its primary mission 12-hour orbit. The relevance of the November 9, 2011, date is that this was when the MESSENGER team was advised that NASA had approved the proposal for an extended mission, allowing the mission to continue making new observations from March 2012 to March 2013. The animation at 0:22 gives you an idea of the movement and gyrations ("dancing") that the spacecraft undergoes while it performs a schedule packed full of observations that take place over one Earth day. The animation sequence at 0:59 gives you a "top down" view over Mercury's north pole from when MESSENGER first went into orbit until several months into the extended mission. The apparent size of the orbit shrinks from the start of the animation to the end, as shortly into the extended mission, MESSENGER's orbital period was shrunk from 12-hours to 8-hours. The animation sequence at 1:44 shows MESSENGER's "dance" on the first day of the extended mission. The other images and embedded movies can be found in the Gallery section of the MESSENGER website.

Some highlight images of note include:

At 0:48 - Blue rays of Bek crater
At 0:54 - Basho crater
At 0:57 - Poe crater in Caloris basin
At 1:17 - MASCS instrument surface scans in ultraviolet and infrared
At 1:19 - A perspective view of the northern polar region, color-coded to MLA topography
At 1:27 - Rembrandt impact basin
At 1:29 - Rembrandt impact basin superimposed on the US for size comparison
At 1:34 - Rachmaninoff impact basin, 3D effect crated using the digital elevation model
At 1:34 - Debussy crater
At 1:58 - Beagle rupes
At 2:04 - Mosaic view of north pole, showing the shadowed regions
At 2:06 - As previous, with superimposed radar data indicating likely water-ice deposits
At 2:11 - A volcanic vent near the edge of Caloris basin
At 2:34 - Derain crater
At 2:36 - Disney crater and two unnamed craters that resemble Mickey Mouse
At 2:38 - Basho crater while the Sun is low in the sky
At 2:40 - Basho crater again, but now with the Sun nearly overhead
At 2:45 - Degas crater
At 2:58 - 'Weird terrain' at the Caloris antipode
At 3:03 - Waters crater with the 'blue tongue' of dark impact melt material
At 3:10 - Seuss crater
At 3:13 - Caloris basin
At 3:15 - Pit in Scarlatti crater, with prominent hollows on the pit rim
At 3:17 - Enhanced color of Caloris basin
At 3:22 - A lava channel that had flowed into the Kofi crater
At 3:29 - More detail of Caloris basin floor
At 3:30 - The young, bright-rayed Mena crater
At 3:37 - Central peaks of Eminescu crater, with hollows around the bases of the peaks
At 3:39 - Apollodorus and Pantheon fossae
At 3:41 - The hollows on the floor of Sander crater

The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the key science questions that the MESSENGER mission is addressing. During the one-year primary mission, MDIS acquired 88,746 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is now in a year-long extended mission, during which plans call for the acquisition of more than 80,000 additional images to support MESSENGER's science goals.

Video credit: Images and animation stills courtesy NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington. Music: "Mercury Ridge" by Simon Wilkinson (thebluemask.com). Video creation and time-lapse animations by Mark 'Indy' Kochte.

Mercury Global Map

A global color map of Mercury's surface has been created by mosaicking thousands of sets of images obtained by the MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (WAC). The colors shown here are related to variations in the spectral reflectance across the planet. This view captures both compositional differences and differences in how long materials have been exposed at Mercury's surface. Young crater rays, arrayed radially around fresh impact craters, appear light blue or white. Medium- and dark-blue areas are a geologic unit of Mercury's crust known as the "low-reflectance material," thought to be rich in a dark, opaque mineral. Tan areas are plains formed by eruption of highly fluid lavas. The large circular area near the top center is the Caloris impact basin, whose interior is filled with smooth, somewhat younger volcanic plains. Small orangish spots are materials deposited by explosive volcanic eruptions.

The color base map shown here consists of MDIS images taken through eight different color filters. It is part of a global color map that covers more than 99% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of about 1 kilometer per pixel.

Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS). This is an enhanced-color presentation created from a statistical combination of images taken through eight of the WAC filters.

Video credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington; text credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Note: Available on the original NASA webpage are two different size maps available for download: a smaller 6.5 MB video and a larger 23 MB video.

One Solar Day at Mercury's South Pole

This movie shows 89 WAC images of Mercury's south polar region acquired over one complete Mercury solar day (176 Earth days) in 2011. This dataset enabled the illumination conditions at Mercury's south polar region to be quantified.

Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Scale: The large crater near Mercury's south pole, Chao Meng-Fu, has a diameter of 180 km.
Map Information: The movie is shown in polar stereographic projection, extending northward to 73° S, and 0° longitude is at the top.

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