Easy as 1-2-3! - Nasa Messenger Mission Image: Release Date 13 Apr 2012

MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging

Date acquired: April 03, 2012 Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 241962499, 241962491, 241962495 Image ID: 1601144, 1601142, 1601143 Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) WAC filters: 9, 7, 6 (1000, 750, 430 nanometers) in red, green, and blue Center Latitude: 51.01° Center Longitude: 266.4° E Resolution: 148 meters/pixel Scale: An edge of this image is approximately 135 kilometers (84 miles) Incidence Angle: 62.0° Emission Angle: 0.2° Phase Angle: 62.0° Of Interest: Acquiring high-resolution 3-color images of Mercury's surface is a major mapping activity in MESSENGER's extended mission. The 3-color campaign complements the 8-color base map (at an average resolution of 1 km/pixel) acquired during MESSENGER's primary mission by imaging Mercury's surface in a subset of the color filters at the highest resolution possible. The three narrow-band color filters are centered at wavelengths of 430 nm, 750 nm, and 1000 nm, and image resolutions generally range from 100 to 400 meters/pixel in the northern hemisphere. This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution 3-color imaging campaign, and shows a portion of the 196-kilometer diameter crater Sholem Aleichem. In this view, bright hollows appear to be associated with dark material, while a deposit on the crater's floor has a brighter orange hue, similar to that in areas associated with explosive volcanism.

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