PIA14395: Using Shadows to Measure Crater Depths
Using Shadows to Measure Crater Depths
 Target Name:  Mercury
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  MESSENGER 
 Spacecraft:  MESSENGER
 Instrument:  MDIS - Narrow Angle 
 Product Size:  2100 x 1050 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA14395.tif (2.208 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA14395.jpg (287.1 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:

This figure shows two images of craters obtained by MDIS from orbit. Left: A simple, bowl-shaped crater 4.1 km in diameter crater located at 78.8šN, 346.3šE. Solar illumination is from the south. Right: A complex crater 51.5 km in diameter located at 2.3šN, 121.4šE. Illumination is from the east. Shadows cast on a crater interior can be used to estimate the depth of a crater floor below the surrounding rim. To read more about about how craters on Mercury are measured, visit the MESSENGER Science Highlight article.

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.

Date Presented: July 7, 2011, in a MESSENGER Science Highlight article.

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:
2011-07-07