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PIA02962: Large Circular Basin - 1300-km diameter
 Target Name:  Mercury
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mariner Venus Mercury (Mariner 10) 
 Spacecraft:  Mariner 10
 Product Size:  981 x 792 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Producer ID:  P14678
 Addition Date:  2000-08-24
 Other  
Information: 
Mariner 10 Image Project
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02962.tif (609.1 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02962.jpg (154.3 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:

Close-up view of one-half of a 1300-km diameter circular basin the largest observed on Mercury. The other half is hidden beyond the terminator to the left. Hills and valleys extend in a radial fashion outward from the main ring. Interior of the large basin is completely flooded by plains materials; adjacent lowlands are also partially flooded and superimposed on the plains are bowl shaped craters. Wrinkle ridges are abundant on the plains materials. The area shown is 1008 miles (1600 km) from the top to the bottom of the picture. Sun's illumination is from the right. Blurred linear lines extending across the picture near bottom are missing data lines that have been filled in by the computer. Mariner 10 encountered Mercury on Friday, March 29th, 1974, passing the planet on the darkside 431 miles (690-km) from the surface.

The Mariner 10 mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon.

NOTE: This image was scanned from physical media.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
2000-08-24