This image shows a lobate scarp in Mercury's northern hemisphere. Lobate scarps are believed to form when one block of crust thrusts up and over another, in response to the global contraction of Mercury as its core cooled and solidified. This scarp developed as the block of crust on the left of the image moved towards the right. North is to the bottom right of the image.

This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel (0.6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.

Date acquired: January 01, 2012
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 233942639
Image ID: 1211937
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 26.86°
Center Longitude: 85.09° E
Resolution: 54 meters/pixel
Scale: The crater at the left of the image is approximately 20 km (12 miles) in diameter
Incidence Angle: 61.6°
Emission Angle: 54.0°
Phase Angle: 28.1°

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.