MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging
| Date acquired: January 27, 2012 Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 236192195 Image ID: 1320489 Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) Center Latitude: 62.63° Center Longitude: 348.5° E Resolution: 21 meters/pixel Scale: This image is 37 km (23 miles) wide from left corner to right corner Incidence Angle: 80.6° Emission Angle: 46.4° Phase Angle: 127.1°
Of Interest: In this image, a portion of the 116 km- (73 mile-) diameter Abedin crater is visible. The floor of the crater is generally smooth, and hosts many small troughs that are interpreted to be graben. Graben form as the result of extensional (i.e. pull-apart) stresses, which in this case may have resulted from the cooling and solidification of either impact melt or volcanic fill inside Abedin, similar to that seen in other basins across Mercury.
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 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel (0.6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.
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| Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington |
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