MESSENGER
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This central-peak crater naturally draws attention because of its prominent rays, which extend hundreds of kilometers across the planet. Until receiving its official name of Debussy in March 2010, this crater had been known only as
 
 
Debussy and Its Hundreds of Kilometers of Rays
The crater pictured in the center of this image was recently named Picasso, in honor of the Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). This crater has drawn scientific attention because of the large, arc-shaped pit located on the eastern side of its floor. Similar pits have been discovered on the floors of several other Mercury craters, such as Beckett and Gibran. These pits are postulated to have formed when subsurface magma subsided or drained, causing the surface to collapse into the resulting void. If this interpretation is correct, pit-floor craters such as Picasso provide evidence of shallow magmatic activity in Mercury's history. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Pits, Picasso, and Mercury's History
Pictured above is an impact crater first imaged during Mercury flyby 2 and drawing scientific attention because of its extensive system of rays, which extend over a thousand kilometers across the planet. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently approved the name Hokusai for this spectacular rayed crater. Hokusai is a prominent feature seen in Earth-based radar images of Mercury, and the name Hokusai was suggested by radar astronomer John K. Harmon. The crater’s name honors the Japanese painter, draftsman, and printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Hokusai is perhaps best known for the painting
 
 
Hokusai Paints a Wave of Rays
This enhanced-color view was created with a statistical technique that highlights subtle color variations seen in the 11 WAC filters. These variations are often related to composition. Merged with images from the higher-resolution NAC, the two sets of observations tell the story of the geology of the area and the compositional differences of the features observed. This region, viewed in detail for the first time during the third flyby, appears to have experienced a high level of volcanic activity. The bright yellow area near the top right is centered on a rimless depression that is a candidate site for an explosive volcanic vent. The double-ring basin in the center of the image has a smooth interior that may be the result of effusive volcanism. Smooth plains, thought to be a result of earlier episodes of volcanic activity, cover much of the surrounding area. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Evidence of Volcanic Activity on Mercury
As MESSENGER approached Mercury for the mission's third and final flyby of the Solar System's innermost planet, the WAC acquired images through all 11 of its narrow-band color filters. The 1000, 700, and 430 nanometer filters were combined in red, green, and blue to create this color image, the last close-up color view that will be acquired until MESSENGER goes into orbit around Mercury in March of 2011. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Color View of the Solar System's Innermost Planet
Some impact craters on Mercury have non-circular, irregularly shaped depressions or pits on their floors. Such craters have been termed pit-floor craters, and MESSENGER team members have suggested that such pits formed by the collapse of subsurface magma chambers. If this suggestion is correct, the pits are evidence of volcanic processes at work on the Solar System's innermost planet. With high-resolution images from MESSENGER’s third Mercury flyby, more pit-floor craters are being identified on Mercury's surface. This NAC image shows a good view of a pit-floor crater imaged last week prior to closest approach. The large crater near the center of the image contains an elongated bean-shaped depression on its floor and is a pit-floor crater. The slightly smaller crater to the south also contains a pair of depressions on its floor, though from this image alone it cannot be determined if the depressions are pits or overlapping impact craters. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Evidence of Volcanism on Mercury: It's the Pits
This image, acquired as MESSENGER approached Mercury for its third flyby, shows a large expanse of smooth plains material. The density of impact craters on the smooth plains is less than on the heavily cratered terrain visible in the upper right and lower right corners of the image. The presence of fewer impact craters means that the plains are young compared with the older, battered terrain. Despite their relative youth, the plains have been modified extensively by tectonic forces in Mercury's crust. This modification produced the curving scarps (cliffs) and
 
 
Young and Wrinkled
As MESSENGER approached Mercury, the NAC acquired a high-resolution mosaic of the sunlit crescent planet that contained 62 images. To ensure that the entire sunlit portion of Mercury was covered in the mosaic, a few of the images, like the one here, have large areas of blackness. The terminator, the division between the dark night side and light dayside, runs through the middle of this NAC shot. Shadows are elongated in this image, as the craters catch the rays of an evening Sun. At the actual terminator location in this image, only the highest points of crater rims and inner peak rings are seen illuminated by sunlight. Such grazing lighting conditions can provide important information about the heights of geologic features on the surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Terminator Shot
Humans have now had three views of the bright area shown near the top center of this image. The first view was as a mere tiny bright spot seen in telescopic images of Mercury obtained from Earth by astronomer Ronald Dantowitz. The second view was obtained by the MESSENGER Narrow Angle Camera during the spacecraft's second Mercury flyby on October 6, 2008. At that time, the bright feature was just on the planet's limb (edge) as seen from MESSENGER. Now MESSENGER has provided a new, even better view. The geometry of MESSENGER's third Mercury flyby allows us to see the feature and its surroundings in greater detail. Surprisingly, at the center of the bright halo is an irregular depression, which may have formed through volcanic processes. Color images from MESSENGER's Wide Angle Camera reveal that the irregular depression and bright halo have distinctive color. This area will be of particular interest for further observation during MESSENGER's orbital operations starting in 2011. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Bright Spot
The above MESSENGER images were taken on approach to Mercury during the spacecraft's second (left) and third (right) flybys. The image on the right was taken about 75 minutes before MESSENGER's closest approach. The two images cover very nearly the same terrain, but for the right image the Sun's illumination is more nearly grazing (local time is almost sunset) and the viewing perspective of the spacecraft is more nearly vertical. The large impact crater bisected with a prominent scarp or cliff is the same feature in both images. Because of Mercury's rotation between the two encounters, the position of the crater in the right image is nearly at the terminator (the division between the dayside and night side of the planet), and thus the shadows are longer. The near-grazing illumination emphasizes the topography of the crater floor, including the relief of the wrinkle ridges on either side of the large scarp. To the west of the crater, the shadows and viewing angle show that the terrain is far more rugged than it appeared from the second flyby. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Evening Shadows
This image shows a double-ring impact basin, with another large impact crater on its south-southwestern side. Smaller, more recent impacts formed comparatively fresh craters across the entire surface visible in this image. The floor within the inner or peak ring appears to be smoother than the floor between the peak ring and the outer rim, possibly the result of lava flows that partially flooded the basin some time after impact. Double-ring basins are formed when a large meteoroid strikes the surface of a rocky planet. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Seeing Double?
This newly observed flat-floored crater was viewed at an oblique angle as MESSENGER approached Mercury for its third flyby, about two hours from closest approach. This crater is younger than nearby craters of similar size, indicated by the distinctive halo of small secondary craters that radiate outward from the central structure. Many of these secondaries are aligned in chain-like formations and some show characteristic
 
 
Crater Ejecta and Chains of Secondary Impacts
The unnamed crater in the center of the image, viewed at close range for the first time yesterday during MESSENGER’s third flyby of Mercury, displays an arc-shaped depression known as a pit crater on its floor. Impact craters on Mercury that host pit craters in their interiors have been named pit-floor craters. Unlike impact craters, pit craters are rimless, often irregularly shaped, and steep-sided, and they display no associated ejecta or lava flows but are typically distinctive in color. Thought to be evidence of shallow magmatic activity, pit craters may have formed when subsurface magma drained elsewhere and left a roof area unsupported, leading to collapse and the formation of the pit. In this example, the southern area of the pit appears to have two or more floor levels. The discovery of multiple pit-floor craters augments a growing body of evidence that volcanic activity was widespread in the geologic evolution of Mercury's crust. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Newly Pictured Pit-Floor Crater
This unnamed impact basin was seen for the first time yesterday during MESSENGER's third flyby of Mercury. The outer diameter of the basin is approximately 260 kilometers (160 miles). This basin has a double-ring structure common to basins with diameters larger than 200 kilometers (about 125 miles). The floor of the basin consists of smooth plains material. Concentric troughs, formed by surface extension, are visible on the basin floor, similar to those seen in Raditladi basin. Such troughs are rare on Mercury, and the discovery of such features in this newly imaged basin is of great interest to members of the MESSENGER Science Team. Crater chains produced during ejecta emplacement also can be seen emanating from the basin. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Newly Imaged Basin
In this image, Mercury's northern horizon cuts a crisp line against the blackness of space. The surface in the lower right corner of the image is near Mercury's terminator, the line between the light dayside and dark night side of the planet. Looking toward the horizon, smooth plains extend for large distances. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Look over Mercury's Northern Horizon
Yesterday, as the spacecraft approached Mercury for the mission's third flyby of the Solar System's innermost planet, MESSENGER captured this striking view. This WAC image shows portions of Mercury's surface that had remained unseen by spacecraft even after the three flybys by Mariner 10 in 1974-75 and MESSENGER's two earlier flybys in 2008. In this image, just returned to Earth early this morning, the newly imaged terrain is located in a wide vertical strip near the limb of the planet (on the left side of Mercury's partially sunlit disk). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
MESSENGER Sees the Previously Unseen
This impact crater in the high northern latitudes of Mercury was recently named for the Bangladeshi painter Zainul Abedin (1914-1976). Abedin exhibits a complex crater structure with a smooth floor, wall terraces, and a central peak complex. The chains of smaller craters surrounding Abedin are secondary craters formed by ejecta from the initial impact. The northwestern (upper left in this view) section of Abedin's continuous ejecta blanket appears to have a lower reflectance than the rest of the material adjacent to the crater rim. This pattern suggests that the darker material resided at some depth beneath the northwestern portion of the pre-impact target area and was excavated and redeposited during the crater's formation. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Newly Named Abedin in Mercury’s North
The crater at the center of this image contains a large, nearly circular pit crater, identified with the white arrow. Multiple examples of pit craters have been observed on Mercury on the floors of impact craters, leading to the name pit-floor craters for the impact structures that host these features. Unlike impact craters, pit craters are rimless, often irregularly shaped, steep-sided, and display no associated ejecta or lava flows. These pit craters are thought to be evidence of shallow volcanic activity and may have formed when retreating magma caused an unsupported area of the surface to collapse, creating a pit. Pit-floor craters may provide an indication of internal igneous processes where other evidence of volcanic processes is absent or ambiguous. The discovery of multiple pit-floor craters augments a growing body of evidence that volcanic activity has been a widespread process in the geologic evolution of Mercury's crust. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Picture of a Pit-Floor Crater
This enhanced-color image shows Titian crater (center) and is similar to an image that recently appeared in the 1 May issue of Science magazine. The enhanced-color view was created by using high-resolution images taken in all 11 WAC filers and comparing and contrasting them to accentuate differences on Mercury’s surface. Such color differences can be used to learn about the history of Mercury’s surface in this area. In the enhanced color, the smooth floor of Titian is a brighter orange color than the surrounding area, likely due to being filled with volcanic material. Ejecta from Titian appear blue and cover much of the surface surrounding the crater. This material was excavated from depth during the crater’s formation. Later impacts, such as the one that produced the small crater that appears yellow in the upper center of the image, excavated material from below the Titian ejecta. This yellow-appearing material was present at or near the surface before the impact that created Titian and is a different composition (and thus, color) from its surroundings. Impacts make it possible to assess how Mercury’s crust varies with depth and ultimately how the crust evolved through time. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Colors Reveal What Lies Beneath
MESSENGER's high-resolution images obtained during the mission's second Mercury flyby have revealed a number of irregularly shaped depressions on the floor of Praxiteles crater. These depressions are intriguing indications of possible past volcanic activity within this crater. The image shown here is similar to one recently published in the 1 May issue of Science magazine. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Overlaying Color onto Praxiteles Crater
Both images are orthographic map projections of Mercury created with WAC enhanced-color images. The orthographic projection produces a view that has the perspective that one would see from deep space. The WAC enhanced color uses a statistical analysis of images from all 11 WAC filters to highlight subtle differences in the crustal rocks on Mercury's surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Global View of Mercury's Surface
The Rembrandt impact basin was discovered by MESSENGER during its second flyby of Mercury in October 2008. Images show that the Rembrandt basin is remarkably well preserved. Most large impact basins on Mercury, the Moon, and other inner planets are flooded by volcanic flows that cover their entire floor. The number per area and size distribution of impact craters superposed on Rembrandt’s rim indicates that it is one of the youngest impact basins on Mercury. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Smithsonian Institution/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Rembrandt Impact Basin
This high-resolution NAC image shows a view of Mercury's dawn terminator, the division between the sunlit dayside and dark nightside of the planet, as seen as the MESSENGER spacecraft departed the planet during the mission's second Mercury flyby. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Terminator View from Mercury Flyby 2
The crater identified in this NAC image was named in November 2008 for Ronald Moody, a 20th century Jamaican sculptor and painter. Moody features a central peak or peak-ring structure and an annulus of dark material on its outer floor (green arrows). The area inward of the dark ring appears reddish in enhanced color WAC images, indicating the presence of material different in composition from that of either the dark material or the crater's immediate surroundings. Dark material has been found associated with other craters on Mercury, including Munch and Poe. Moody is somewhat unusual for having its dark ring confined to the crater floor, rather than forming the crater rim as at Munch and Poe. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
Moody Sculpts Mercury's Surface
The crater Oskison is located in the far northern hemisphere of Mercury, in the plains north of Caloris basin. Oskison is a distinctive crater with a large central peak that exposes material excavated from depth. In this NAC image, many chains of secondary craters are visible (green arrows), radiating from Oskison outward onto the surrounding smooth plains. Oskison was just named in November 2008 for John Milton Oskison, a Cherokee author (1874-1947). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A View of Oskison in Mercury's North
Raditladi basin, imaged during MESSENGER's first Mercury flyby and named in April 2008, is intriguing for several reasons. Shown extending across the top of this high-resolution NAC image, Raditladi basin is relatively young, with only a few small impact craters on the basin's floor and with well-preserved basin walls and peak-ring structure. Visible on the floor of Raditladi are concentric troughs (blue arrows), formed by extension (pulling apart) of the surface. However, extensional troughs on Mercury are quite rare, having been seen to date only in two other locations on the planet: as part of Pantheon Fossae and other troughs in Caloris basin and on the floor of Rembrandt, the large basin discovered during MESSENGER's second Mercury flyby. Understanding how these troughs formed in the young Raditladi basin could provide an important indicator of processes that acted relatively recently in Mercury’s geologic history. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
The Curious Case of Raditladi Basin
The area on the opposite side of Mercury from the large Caloris impact basin is home to uncommonly bumpy and grooved terrain. Mariner 10 first observed the unusual surface textures at the Caloris antipodal region, and the Mariner 10 team informally dubbed it the
 
 
"Weird Terrain" at the Antipode of Caloris
The large crater extending out the left side of this image is Praxiteles. Named for the ancient Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC, Praxiteles crater was first observed by Mariner 10. MESSENGER's high-resolution NAC images (one of which is shown here) and 11-color Wide Angle Camera (WAC) images have provided a detailed new look at this crater. Of particular interest are irregularly shaped depressions on the crater's floor, the largest of which is indicated by the red arrow and located just inward of the crater's peak ring. The colors near these depressions in WAC images are similar to those near volcanoes discovered during the mission's first Mercury flyby along the inner edge of the Caloris basin. The similar colors and the association with the irregular depressions (possible volcanic vents) are suggestive of past volcanic activity on the floor of Praxiteles. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
A Peek into Praxiteles
This NAC image shows Qi Baishi and Hovnatanian, two craters that were newly named in November 2008. Qi Baishi is named for the famous Chinese painter who died in his nineties in 1957. Hovnatanian is named for the nineteenth century Armenian painter Hakop Hovnatanian. Both craters are relatively small but exhibit bright ray systems, indicating that they are comparatively young features on Mercury's surface. Qi Baishi has an asymmetric pattern of ejecta rays, which formed by an object travelling to the east or to the west and impacting Mercury's surface at a very low incidence angle. However, Qi Baishi crater is still roughly circular, which is in contrast to the elongated shape of neighboring Hovnatanian crater. Hovnatanian crater and its
 
 
Low Angle Impacts: A Look at Qi Baishi and Hovnatanian
This NAC image shows a close-up view of the craters Vyasa and Stravinsky. Stravinsky is the smooth-floored crater partially seen on the right side of the image that overlies the rim of the larger, rougher crater Vyasa in the center and left. The low-Sun lighting angle casts distinctive shadows that show Mercury's rough surface, pockmarked by craters of all sizes. Small craters are visible on the smooth-floor of Stravinsky because of the high resolution of this image. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
 
 
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