New images reveal views after closest approach, first Mercury laser altimeter results

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
High resolution image

This figure shows the distance, or range, from the MESSENGER spacecraft to the surface of Mercury as measured by MLA during the flyby of Mercury. The instrument acquired the surface at a slant range of about 600 kilometers (about 370 miles) and tracked the surface through closest approach near 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) and out to a distance of about 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles).

During the Mercury encounter the instrument met or exceeded all performance specifications. The MESSENGER team is continuing to process the MLA data, and the final results should enable distances to be measured to better than a meter, allowing the profiles of craters and other features to be measured.

The vertical exaggeration in the figure is about 5:1.




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

This image shows Mercury's surface as seen from a low viewing angle, looking over the surface and off the limb of the planet on the right side of the image. The cratered terrain in the image is on the side of Mercury unseen by spacecraft prior to this MESSENGER flyby. This scene was imaged at multiple viewing angles as MESSENGER sped away from Mercury, and these multiple views of the same surface features from different perspectives and in different colors will be used to help understand the properties of Mercury's surface.