PIA14209: A View of Camoes in Mercury's South Polar Region
 Target Name:  Mercury
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  MESSENGER
 Spacecraft:  MESSENGER
 Instrument:  MDIS - Narrow Angle
 Product Size:  1735 x 1555 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14209.tif (2.701 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14209.jpg (277.9 kB)

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

Original Caption Released with Image:

MESSENGER's near-polar orbit about Mercury, in contrast to the mission's three equatorial flybys of the planet, enables MDIS to view Mercury's polar regions for the first time. This image, located in Mercury's south polar region, shows the crater Camões near the center of the image. A scarp crosses the floor and wall of Camões, in a pattern similar to that seen at Thakur crater. Camões takes its name from the Portuguese poet Luiz Vas de Camões (c. 1524-1580). The crater extending out of the upper left corner of the image is Okyo, named for the Japanese painter Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795).

On March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011, UTC), MESSENGER became the first spacecraft ever to orbit the planet Mercury. The mission is currently in its commissioning phase, during which spacecraft and instrument performance are verified through a series of specially designed checkout activities. In the course of the one-year primary mission, the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation will unravel the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the science questions that the MESSENGER mission has set out to answer.

Date acquired: March 30, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 209943738
Image ID: 67364
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -70.62°
Center Longitude: 292.0° E
Resolution: 150 meters/pixel
Scale: Camoes has a diameter of 70 kilometers (43 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:
2011-04-04