Catalog Page for PIA12043

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PIA12043: A View of Oskison in Mercury's North

This view in the southern constellation Carina was acquired on December 13, 2007 as part of the characterization tests of the Framing Camera. The false-color view is a composite of images at 430 nm (violet), 650 nm (red), and 980 nm (infrared).

Target Name:	Mercury
Is a satellite of:	Sol (our sun)
Mission:	MESSENGER
Spacecraft:	MESSENGER
Instrument:	MDIS - Narrow Angle
Product Size:	1018 x 1025 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	Johns Hopkins University/APL
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA12043.tif (1.045 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA12043.jpg (116.4 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

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The crater Oskison is located in the far northern hemisphere of Mercury, in the plains north of Caloris basin (PIA10359). 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 (PIA10178) 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) (see PIA11762).

Date Acquired: January 14, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 108828799
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 550 meters (0.34 miles) per pixel
Scale: Oskison is 120 kilometers (75 miles) in diameter
Spacecraft Altitude: 21,700 kilometers (13,500 miles)

These images are from MESSENGER, a NASA Discovery mission to conduct the first orbital study of the innermost planet, Mercury. For information regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy.

Image Credit:

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

Image Addition Date:

2009-04-07