An oblique view of pyroclastic vents on Mercury via MESSENGER
Here on Earth we’re used to seeing volcanoes as towering mountains with steam-belching peaks or enormous fissures oozing lava. But on Mercury volcanic features often take the form of sunken pits surrounded by bright reflective material. They look like craters from orbit but are more irregularly-shaped, and here we have a view from MESSENGER of a cluster of them amidst a rugged landscape that stretches all the way to the planet’s limb.
The image above shows a group of pyroclastic vents on Mercury, located just north and east of the 180-mile (290-km) -wide, double-ringed Rachmaninoff crater. The vents lie in the center of a spread of high-reflectance material, sprayed out by ancient eruptions. This bright blanket of material stands out against Mercury’s surface so well, it has even been spotted in Earth-based observations!
An older vent can be seen at the bottom right, looking like a crater but with non-circular walls. North is to the left.
So why do Mercury’s volcanoes look so different than Earth’s? Planetary scientist David Blewett from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory explains:
“Volcanism on Mercury (and also the Moon) appears to have been dominated by flood lavas, in which large quantities if highly fluid (low-viscosity) magma erupts and flows widely to cover a large area. In this type of eruption, no large ‘volcano’ edifice is constructed,” David wrote in an email. “The lunar maria and many of Mercury’s smooth plains deposits were formed in this manner.”
“On both the Moon and Mercury there are also examples of explosive activity in which eruptions from a vent showered the surroundings with pyroclastic material (volcanic ash),” he added. “The vents and bright pyroclastic halos seen near Rachmaninoff on Mercury are examples, as well as numerous ‘dark mantle deposits’ on the Moon.”
The discovery and investigation of vents like these is extremely valuable to scientists, as they provide information on Mercury’s formation, composition, and the nature of volatiles in its interior. (Plus the oblique angle is very cool! Makes you feel like you’re flying along with MESSENGER over Mercury’s surface.)
See below for a wider view of the region and context of the placement of these vents to Rachmaninoff.
MESSENGER image of Rachmaninoff crater obtained in September 2009
This elevated rise on Mercury resembles a vaguely humanoid shape
You’ve all heard of the “face on Mars” and the “man in the Moon” — well I guess this would be the “man on Mercury!” And I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before…
“Oh, they’ve encased him in carbonite. He should be quite well protected.”
In yet another instance of the phenomenon known as pareidolia, it’s hard not to see the vaguely human shape in this image of Mercury’s surface, acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft in July 2011. But what looks like a person with upraised arms (resembling, the team suggests, a certain carbonite-encased space smuggler) is really an ancient block of surface crust that juts from the floor of Mercury’s vast Caloris basin — likely the remnants of harder material predating the basin-forming impact 3.9 billion years ago. The low angle of sunlight from the west helps to highlight the surface shapes.
The image above shows an area 96 km (59.7 mi.) across.
If Jabba really wanted to keep his favorite wall decoration safe, perhaps he should have put it on Mercury…
The MESSENGER team celebrates 1,000 featured images of the innermost planet!
It’s been nearly two and a half years since the NASA-sponsored MESSENGER mission entered orbit around Mercury — the first spacecraft ever to do so — and today the MESSENGER team celebrated the 1,000th featured image on the mission site with a mosaic of discovery highlights, seen above.
“I thought it sensible to produce a collage for the 1,000th web image because of the sheer volume of images the team has already posted, as no single picture could encompass the enormous breadth of Mercury science covered in these postings,” explained MESSENGER Fellow Paul Byrne, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “Some of the images represent aspects of Mercury’s geological characteristics, and others are fun extras, such as the U.S. Postal Service’s Mercury stamp. The ‘1,000’ superimposed on the collage is a reminder of the major milestone the team has reached in posting 1,000 featured images — and even a motivation to post 1,000 more.”
See the very first image MESSENGER obtained from orbit below:
The Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) team has posted a new image to the MESSENGER website approximately once per business day since March 29, 2011, when this first image of Mercury’s surface obtained from orbit was made public.
“During this two-year period, MESSENGER’s daily web image has been a successful mechanism for sharing results from the mission with the public at large,” said Nancy Chabot, MDIS Instrument Scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Chabot has been leading the release of web images since MESSENGER’s first flyby of Mercury in January 2008.
“The first image I released was this one, as MESSENGER approached Mercury for the mission’s first Mercury flyby,” said Chabot. “Mercury was just a small crescent in the image, but it was still very exciting for me. We were obtaining the first spacecraft images of Mercury since Mariner 10 transmitted its final image in 1975, and this was just the beginning of the flood of images that followed.”
One of the first spacecraft images of Mercury since Mariner 10 transmitted its final image in 1975
The herculean effort involved in posting a new image every business day was made possible by a small team of scientists in addition to Chabot and Byrne, including APL’s David Blewett, Brett Denevi, Carolyn Ernst, Rachel Klima, Nori Laslo, and Heather Meyer.
“Creating images and captions for the MESSENGER Image Gallery has been fun and interesting,” Blewett said. “Working on a Gallery release gives me a chance take a break from my regular research and look all around Mercury’s surface for an image that the general public might find to be engaging from a scientific, artistic, or humorous perspective (and sometimes all three!).”
“The posting of the 1,000th image of Mercury on our web gallery is a wonderful benchmark, but there’s much more to come,” adds MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “MESSENGER’s altitude at closest approach is steadily decreasing, and in a little more than six months our spacecraft will be able to view Mercury at closer range than ever before with each orbit. Stay tuned!”
Image credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet Mercury and the first space mission designed to orbit the planet closest to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on August 3, 2004, and entered orbit about Mercury on March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011 UTC).
The LADEE satellite in lunar orbit. The revolutionary modular science probe is equipped with a Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) that will attempt to show two-way laser communication beyond Earth is possible, expanding the possibility of transmitting huge amounts of data. This new ability could one day allow for 3-D High Definition video transmissions in deep space to become routine. Credit: NASA
In an exclusive new interview with Universe Today, NASA’s Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden was “very excited” to discuss the historic Moon Shot set to launch NASA’s LADEE lunar orbiter from the Virginia coast and the NASA Wallops Island facility on Friday night, Sept. 6, that boasts “a new modular design” that can revolutionize how we explore our solar system “with robotic orbiters, landers and rovers” – and is aimed at “answering fundamental science questions.”
“LADEE is the first in a new class of interplanetary exploration missions,” NASA Ames Director Worden told Universe Today. NASA Ames leads the LADEE mission. “It will study the pristine moon to study significant questions.”
“And it will demonstrate a new modular approach that will give us science at a lower cost. We are very excited.”
“It will tell us a lot about the moon,” Worden told me.
When America returns to the Moon with the LADEE spacecraft blasting off shortly before midnight Sept. 6, it could potentially be watched by many tens of millions of spectators – weather permitting – along the US East Coast stretching from Maine to the Carolina’s and into parts of the Midwest. See launch visibility map below.
LADEE Minotaur V Launch – Maximum Elevation Map
The LADEE nighttime launch will be visible to millions of spectators across a wide area of the Eastern US -weather permitting. This map shows the maximum elevation (degrees above the horizon) that the Minotaur V rocket will reach during the Sep. 6, 2013 launch depending on your location along the US east coast. Credit: Orbital Sciences
And the science timing for LADEE’s lunar mission is just perfect as well since several countries and corporations are gearing up to dispatch a batch of new orbiters and landers to Earth’s nearest neighbor that could change its character forever.
“This is probably our last best chance to study the pristine Moon before there is a lot of human activity there changing things.”
The purpose of LADEE’s trio of science instruments is to collect data that will inform scientists in unprecedented detail about the ultra thin lunar atmosphere, environmental influences on lunar dust and conditions near the surface.
Engineers from NASA’s Ames Research Center have successfully completed launch preparation activities for blastoff of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory on Sept. 6. The revolutionary modular science probe has been encapsulated into the nose-cone of the maiden Minotaur V rocket at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. Credit: NASA Ames
The couch sized probe is built on a ‘modular common spacecraft bus’, or body, that could be implemented on space probes to explore a wide variety of targets in the solar system.
“We think the modular bus is a winner,” Worden explained to Universe Today.
“LADEE could lead to other low cost missions to orbit and even land on the Moon, near Earth asteroids, Mercury and also the moons of Mars.”
“The LADEE bus is a strong contender for future NASA planetary missions, especially landers on bodies with a tenuous atmosphere. And small micro-rovers are possible too. We are really proud of it!”
A computer-generated model of the LADEE spacecraft based on the modular common spacecraft bus. Credit: NASA/Ames
LADEE is NASA’s first ever planetary mission to launch from the Eastern Shore of Virginia at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island. The blastoff is expected to draw large crowds. Some local hotels are already sold out.
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) Observatory is NASA’s next mission to the Moon.
It thunder’s to space at 11:27 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, from launch complex 0B at NASA’s Wallops Island facility and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) atop the maiden flight of the new, solid fueled Minotaur V rocket developed by Orbital Sciences Corp.
LADEE’s Ticket to the Moon – 5th Stage of new Minotaur V rocket
Close-up view of STAR 37 5th stage solid fuel motor for inaugural Minotaur V rocket launch at NASA Wallops rocket facility will propel LADEE into its lunar transfer orbit. LADEE will be mounted on top and surrounded by the payload fairing attached at bottom ring. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
The goal of the $280 Million mission is to gain a thorough understanding of long-standing unknowns about the tenuous atmosphere, dust and surface interactions that will help scientists understand other planetary bodies as well.
“After Apollo, the amazing thing is that we opened as many questions as we answered,” said Worden. “One of the key issues is – What is the environment on the Moon’s surface from the lunar day to the lunar night?”
“And what are the limitations that would place on our activities there?”
“Although the moon has a tenuous atmosphere it’s actually very active and interacts very strongly with the solar wind. It may produce something that on Earth we would call a ‘dust storm’.”
“We also wish to have the ‘ground truth’ [measurements] of the Moon’s environment before humans change things.”
And change is inexorably coming to the Moon rather soon.
“The Chinese plan to land on the Moon by year’s end,” Worden elaborated.
“What we found during Apollo is that an artificial disturbance very considerably changes the Moon’s atmosphere – or exosphere.”
“So we really want to known the pristine state of the lunar exosphere before its changed by human activity.”
“The data we have from Apollo surface measurements shows that it took many months for the lunar exosphere to go back to its pristine state.”
“Now there are probably a half dozen to a dozen programs planning to land on the Moon in the next decade. So we may never see the Moon’s pristine state again!”
“So these are pretty significant questions that we will have an opportunity to answer with LADEE.”
LADEE Science Instrument locations
LADEE is the first spacecraft of any kind that’s been designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
“This is our first complete mission built out at Ames,” Worden explained.
“It’s also the first of a new paradigm where we are trying to develop a low cost modular bus design.
The approach on LADEE was to make it a mix and match modular bus – rather than a singular modular bus.
“So we have modular slices that use a propulsion stage, lander stage, communications stage, science payload stage, bus housekeeping stage and more,” Worden told me.
“In the past many others tried to build a ‘one size fits all’ modular bus. But it turns out that one size does NOT fit all needs.”
“So we took a page from how you build desktop computers.”
“We put in different modules that you can expand or subtract much more easily without changing the whole fundamental architecture or design.”
“So assuming this works well, I think you will see a lot more missions. And that makes it really exciting as our first mission.”
And the Ames modular bus has definitely sparked entrepreneurial interest.
“The bus is already an approach being used by at least one of the Google Lunar X-Prize competitors! The Moon Express team has looked at it a lot to transition that capability to them,” Worden explained.
How about future NASA missions?
“The LADEE bus is also a key part of several of our Ames proposals for future planetary missions,” Worden replied.
“The original design concept about seven years ago was for a small lunar lander. The lander propulsion would likely be a solid fueled stage.”
“Ultimately, NASA decided to go with the orbiter instead. And that showed the strength of the modular bus design – that it was very easy to change it from a lunar lander to the LADEE mission orbiter studying the lunar exosphere.”
I asked if it could deploy a small rover too?
“Yes- a small, micro rover is possible, perhaps 10 to 20 inches in size. And you could pack a lot of science on the small rover using today’s technology!
The Modular Common Spacecraft Bus lander configuration in a hover test in 2008. The lander could be used to deploy micro-rovers. Credit: NASA
Thus there are numerous exploration possibilities – all dependent on the Federal budget for NASA in this extremely difficult fiscal environment.
NASA Ames had “built parts and spacecraft components and science instruments before, but not a spacecraft in the entirety and in house,” Worden told Universe Today.
For example, a few years back Ames built the LCROSS lunar impacting spacecraft that smashed into the Moon’s south pole and discovered a treasure trove of water ice.
LCROSS piggybacked as a secondary science mission payload onto NASA’ s Lunar Reconnaisannce Orbiter (LRO) when the duo launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida atop an Atlas V rocket.
NASA Ames has now taken the next step – having designed and built the whole LADEE spacecraft from beginning to end.
“This is our first real baby. It’s very exciting,” beamed Worden.
“LADEE is a pretty phenomenal mission.”
They say “Virginia is for Lovers’
Well coming this Friday, “Virginia is for Space Lovers too!”
Chris Angulo, LADEE Program Engineering manager of Orbital Sciences, and Ken Kremer of Universe Today inspect the 4th and 5th stages of maiden Minotaur V rocket propelling NASA’s LADEE spacecraft to the Moon on Sept. 6 from NASA Wallops in Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
And remember that NASA has a 2nd historic launch from Wallops slated for Sep. 17 – with blastoff of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo carrier bound for its 1st flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
Be sure to watch for my continuing LADEE and Antares mission reports from on site at NASA’s Wallops Launch Pads in sunny Virginia – reporting for Universe Today.
…………….
Learn more about LADEE, Cygnus, Antares, MAVEN, Orion, Mars rovers and more at Ken’s upcoming presentations
Sep 5/6/16/17: “LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Rodeway Inn, Chincoteague, VA, 8 PM
Oct 3: “Curiosity, MAVEN and the Search for Life on Mars – (3-D)”, STAR Astronomy Club, Brookdale Community College & Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, 8 PM
Oct 9: “LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Princeton University, Amateur Astronomers Assoc of Princeton (AAAP), Princeton, NJ, 8 PM
Close Up Side view of NASA Ames built LCROSS lunar impactor. NASA Ames LADEE orbiter is equipped with the UVS science instrument based on LCROSS heritage. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
A crater on Mercury at the edge of the larger Oskison crater located in the plains north of Caloris basin. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Permanently shadowed craters on the moon or Mercury are one of the most exciting locations to search for water. Because the walls of these craters protect certain spots inside from the rays of the sun, it’s quite possible for ice to lurk inside of there.
We’ve found ice on so-called airless worlds because of this trick of geometry. So how about exploring them? What’s the best way to do so?
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts office suggests using TransFormers to get inside these places. No, not the awesome robots you see in the movies, but still something that has a certain degree of complication: “multifunctional platforms that can change their shape and function”, according to the agency.
NASA’s TransFormers mission concept as it could be deployed on Mercury. Credit: NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts
Like the iconic science fiction heroes, however, the TransFormers would be able to unfold and change their shape. These machines could relay information between a rover and an orbiting satellite, or reflect solar energy on to a target (say, a solar-powered rover).
The challenge with putting a rover in a permanently shadowed crater is figuring out how to power it. Nuclear power sources have special handling considerations during preparation and launch that must be taken into account for safety reasons. Solar power, however, would not be possible in these craters given there is no sunlight.
Putting a TransFormer at the crater’s edge, however, could make the environment a friendly one for a rover powered by the sun. It could reflect light inside and provide a power source for the rover to keep moving.
Solar-panelled rovers are already used on Mars. Here, the Spirit rover’s solar panels were covered with dust until a gust of wind blew it off in 2006. Credit: NASA.
And once that rover starts running around, it would have immense scientific benefits, NASA stated.
“For example, water found in the permanently shadowed areas of craters on the Moon or Mercury can reveal clues about planetary formation and history, and could be used as a resource for astronauts,” the agency wrote.
This could even be extended to the Red Planet, which offers the enticing possibility of stumbling across life.
“Cave exploration on Mars offers the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life; furthermore, caves are time capsules preserving geochemical traces and may safely shelter future human explorers.”
Hi-res targeted MESSENGER image of the interior of Tyagaraja crater (north is to the right).
Here’s a rather interesting view from orbit around the innermost planet: Mercury’s Tyagaraja crater, the interior of which is seen here in an oblique-angled image acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft on November 12, 2011 (and released August 16, 2013.)
This view looks west across the northern portion of the 97-kilometer (60-mile) -wide crater, and shows some of its large central peaks, terraced walls, and bright erosion features called hollows that are spread across a wide swath of its interior.
First seen by MESSENGER in 2011, hollows are thought to indicate an erosion process unique to Mercury because of its composition and close proximity to the Sun. The lack of craters within hollows seems to indicate that they are relatively young features… in fact, they may be part of a process that continues today.
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 200-meter/pixel morphology base map.
Enhanced-color image of Tyagaraja crater acquired on Sept. 29, 2011. Its large hollow field is highlighted.
Tyagaraja is named after Kakarla Tyagabrahmam, an 18th-century composer of classical Indian Carnatic music.
Prepare yourself for some goosebumps. The Mercury spacecraft MESSENGER took this series of images of Earth eight years ago today as it swung by the planet (again) en route to its final destination.
Few humans have seen the Earth as an entire orb. Only a handful of missions, all in the Apollo era, have ventured beyond low Earth orbit. The people who traveled furthest were Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert during Apollo 13, when their spacecraft (which had been crippled by an explosion) looped around the moon on the way home.
MESSENGER is happily traveling around Mercury these days and recently recorded a cool series of images showing the planet as a colorful, spinning sphere. The spacecraft — the first to do an extended stay around that planet — has shown scientists a lot of things, including the discovery of water ice and organics.
The face of Earth aimed toward Cassini during imaging on July 19, 2013
So along with the rest of the world, you smiled. You waved. You went outside on July 19, wherever you were, and looked upwards and out into the solar system knowing that our robotic representative Cassini would be capturing a few pixels’ worth of photons bouncing off our planet when they eventually reached Saturn, 900 million miles away. But did Cassini actually capture any photons coming from where you were? The image above will tell you.
Assembled by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo (where the enormous 305-meter radio telescope is located) this image shows what side of Earth was facing Cassini when its “pale blue dot” images were obtained, at approximately 22:47 UTC (Cassini time.)
Didn’t make it into Cassini’s photo? That’s ok… maybe MESSENGER had already caught you earlier that very same day:
The view of Earth seen by MESSENGER from Mercury on July 19, 2013
Before Cassini took its images — several hours before, in fact — the MESSENGER spacecraft was holding some photo shoots of its own from 61 million miles in the other direction!
The image above shows the side of Earth that was facing Mercury on the morning of July 19, 2013, when MESSENGER was acquiring images in our direction during a hunt for any possible satellites of the innermost planet.
Earth was as bright (-4.8 magnitude) as the maximum brightness of Venus at the moment the image was taken from Mercury.
Of course, in both series of images specific details of our planet can’t be made out — Earth was barely more than a pixel in size (regardless of any bloom caused by apparent brightness.) Clouds, countries, continents, oceans… the entire population of our world, reduced to a single point of light — a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
For both portrayals, high-resolution black and white images from the GOES East and Meteosat meteorological satellites were combined with color information from NASA Visible Earth to generate true-color images of our planet as it would have looked to each respective imaging spacecraft… if they had the impossibly-precise optics to resolve Earth from such distances, of course.
But it’s ok that they don’t… we can still use our imaginations.
Earth from the geostationary weather satellite GOES East on July 19, 2013 at 5 PM EST. This is approximately the view that Cassini would have had of Earth during imaging.
Image credits: PHL @ UPR Arecibo, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington, NERC Satellite Station, Dundee University, Scotland. Thanks to Prof. Abel Méndez (PHL/UCR) for the heads-up on these.
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the climate here is just right for life. Here in our Solar System, there are planets both hotter and colder than Earth.
So… which one is the hottest?
You might think it’s Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Mercury orbits at a distance of only 58 million kilometers, travelling in a blast-furnace of scorching radiation. Its temperature can skyrocket to 700 Kelvin, or 426 degrees Celsius on the sunward side. In the shadows, temperatures plunge down to 80 Kelvin, which is -173 degrees Celsius
Mercury sure is hot, but Venus is hotter.
Venus imaged by Magellan Image Credit: NASA/JPLVenus is much further from the Sun, orbiting at a distance of more than 108 million kilometers. Average temperature there is a hellish 735 Kelvin, or 462 degrees Celsius – hot enough to melt lead.
Venus remains that same temperature no matter where you go on the planet. At the North Pole? 735 Kelvin. At night? 735 Kelvin. Daytime at the equator? You get the point.
So, why is Venus so much hotter than Mercury, even though it’s further away from the Sun? It’s all about the atmosphere.
Mercury is an airless world, not unlike the Moon. Venus, has a very thick atmosphere of CO2, which adds incredible pressure, and traps in the heat.
Atmosphere of Venus. Credit: ESAConsider our own planet. When you stand at sea level on Earth, you’re experiencing one atmosphere of pressure. But if you could stand on the surface of Venus – and trust me, you don’t want to – you’d experience ninety-two times as much atmospheric pressure. This is the same kind of pressure as being a kilometer underneath the surface of the ocean.
Venus also shows us what happens when carbon dioxide levels just keep on rising. Radiation from the Sun is absorbed by the planet, and the infrared heat emitted is trapped by the carbon dioxide, which creates a runaway greenhouse effect.
You might think a planet this hot with such extreme temperature and pressure, would be impossible to explore.
And if you did, you’d be wrong.
The Soviets sent a series of spacecraft called Venera, which parachuted down through the thick atmosphere and returned images from the surface of Venus. Although the first few missions were failures, this taught the Soviets just how hellish the Venusian environment really is. Surface of Venus by Venera.
Venera 13 made it down to the surface in nineteen-eighty-one and survived for one-hundred-and-twenty-seven minutes, sending back the first color pictures of Venus’ surface.
The hottest planet in our solar system is Venus,
When it comes to temperature, distance from the Sun matters, but it takes a backseat to wrapping a planet in a atmospheric blanket of carbon dioxide.
The different colors in this MESSENGER image of Mercury indicate the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up the planet’s surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The MESSENGER mission has now mapped the entire surface of planet Mercury — and this is the first time this has even been done. MESSENGER is the first spacecraft to be in orbit of Mercury, and has been there since 2011, with a couple of flybys starting in 2008 as it slowly looped its way into orbit. The seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation on the spacecraft have provided an entirely new view of the planet.
This colorful view of Mercury is, of course, not what Mercury would look like to the human eye. It was created by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER’s primary mission. These colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up Mercury’s surface, allowing scientists to figure out all the different minerals that are on the planet’s surface.
The complete map of Mercury was completed and released in February of 2013, and is made of thousands of images taken by MESSENGER. The spinning video map shows Mercury as, really, we’ve not seen it before, and it is fun to watch features like large rayed craters and basins spin into view.
The MESSENGER team explained the colors:
Young crater rays, extending radially from fresh impact craters, appear light blue or white. Medium- and dark-blue areas are a geologic unit of Mercury’s crust known as the “low-reflectance material”, thought to be rich in a dark, opaque mineral. Tan areas are plains formed by eruption of highly fluid lavas. The giant Caloris basin is the large circular tan feature located just to the upper right of center of the image.
You can see an image of the other side of Mercury here, and the complete gallery of science images and mosaics here.
