In this view of Mercury's limb, the Rembrandt basin is at top right with Kipling crater to its left. Because MESSEGNER's orbit is highly elliptical, the spacecraft is afforded a beautiful view of Mercury's southern hemisphere on every orbit.

Date acquired: August 28, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 223018008, 223018028, 223018012
Image ID: 687684, 687689, 687685
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filters: 9, 7, 6 (996, 748, 433 nanometers) in red, green, and blue
Center Latitude: -34.98°
Center Longitude: 60.33° E
Center Resolution: 1899 meters/pixel
Scale: Mercury's radius is approximately 2440 km (1516 miles)

The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the key science questions that the MESSENGER mission is addressing. During the one-year primary mission, MDIS is scheduled to acquire more than 75,000 images in support of MESSENGER's science goals.

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.