Catalog Page for PIA12176

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PIA12176: Berkel Leaves Its Mark

The crater in the lower left corner of this image is Berkel, recently named for Turkish painter and printmaker Sabri Berkel (1909-1993).

Target Name:	Mercury
Is a satellite of:	Sol (our sun)
Mission:	MESSENGER
Spacecraft:	MESSENGER
Instrument:	MDIS - Narrow Angle
Product Size:	1018 x 1024 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	Johns Hopkins University/APL
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA12176.tif (1.044 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA12176.jpg (69.61 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:

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The crater in the lower left corner of this image is Berkel, recently named for Turkish painter and printmaker Sabri Berkel (1909-1993). The crater contains dark material in its center and in a ring immediately surrounding it. Moreover, Berkel is surrounded by a blanket of bright ejecta and a system of bright rays. Other craters on Mercury’s surface, such as Basho, also exhibit both bright rays and dark halos. In contrast, two neighboring craters in this image (indicated by white arrows) have bright rays but lack dark halos. Members of the MESSENGER Science Team are investigating why some craters contain dark material while others do not, and what that means for the nature and structure of Mercury's crust.

Date Acquired: October 6, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131774056
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 540 meters/pixel (0.34 miles)
Scale: Berkel is 21 kilometers (13 miles) in diameter
Spacecraft Altitude: 21,200 kilometers (13,200 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:

2009-08-18