This scene captures an area of Mercury's southern hemisphere where none of the craters have yet had names approved by the International Astronomical Union. A variety of terrain types are found in this region: rugged heavily cratered older surfaces, smooth plains on crater floors, and younger bright-rayed craters.

This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution surface morphology base map. The surface morphology base map will cover more than 90% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel). Images acquired for the surface morphology base map typically have off-vertical Sun angles (i.e., high incidence angles) and visible shadows so as to reveal clearly the topographic form of geologic features.

Date acquired: September 20, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 225001789
Image ID: 783910
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -55.50°
Center Longitude: 16.58° E
Resolution: 361 meters/pixel
Scale: The edges of this image are about 360 km (220 mi.) long
Incidence Angle: 57.9°
Emission Angle: 1.3°
Phase Angle: 58.9°

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.