credit Image: NASA
NASA’s Messenger probe is the first to capture images of Mercury since the Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975. Mariner 10 caught only one side of the planet, so researchers are giddy over images taken during Messenger’s Jan. 24 flyby, which show the side of Mercury never before seen. The striking new images released Wednesday show giant, steep cliffs, fault lines and double craters surrounded by starburst patterns, among other surprises.Left: NASA’s Messenger probe used a wide-angle camera equipped with 11 narrow-band color filters. By combining images taken through different filters in the visible and infrared, the data show Mercury in various high-resolution color views never before possible.
credit Image: NASA
As Messenger drew closer to Mercury for its historic first flyby, the spacecraft acquired this image showing various surface textures. Smooth plains are visible at the center of the image and numerous impact craters and rough material are on the lower right.
credit Image: NASA
NASA scientists believe the double-ringed crater in the upper right of this image might have once been volcanic. Subsequently, a major crustal fault system running alongside the crater’s outer rim formed a prominent cliff. This may have led to the uplift seen across part of the crater’s floor. A smaller crater in the upper left of the image has also been cut by the cliff, which means the fault was active after both of these craters had formed.
credit Image: NASA
NASA scientists say these giant scarps (cliffs) indicate that Mercury has a history different from any planet in the solar system. They say the scarps formed when Mercury’s interior cooled and the entire planet shrank slightly as a result. However, Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975 recorded information from less than half the planet, so the extent of the scarps was previously unknown.
credit Image: NASA
Just above and to the left of center in this image, a small crater surrounded by a pronounced set of bright rays extends across Mercury’s surface. Such rays are commonly made in a crater-forming explosion when an asteroid strikes the surface of an airless body like the moon or Mercury. The prominence of the rays implies that the small crater formed comparatively recently, as tiny meteoroids and particles from the solar wind fade the marks with time.
credit Image: NASA
This image shows the side of Mercury not previously seen by spacecraft. The top right shows the limb of the planet (or, the visible transition from a planet’s edge to the space around it), which transitions into the terminator (the line between the sunlit, day side and the dark, night side) on the top left. Near the terminator, the sun illuminates surface features at a low angle, casting long shadows and causing height differences on Mercury’s surface to appear more prominent.
