When MESSENGER flew by Mercury on January 14, 2008, the Mercury Dual
Imaging System (MDIS) snapped images of a large portion of Mercury's
surface that had not been previously seen by spacecraft. On these images,
new examples of long cliffs were identified and viewed for the first time.
This image, taken by the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), shows one of those
cliffs in the bottom right corner. The cliff can be followed from the
bottom edge of the image, cutting through and deforming an impact crater,
and curving out of the image frame on the middle right edge. This cliff is
the northern continuation of the cliff visible in the images previously
released on January 16 (PIA10174) and January 27 (PIA10194). This image
shows an area of Mercury's surface about 200 kilometers (125 miles)
across, and by tracing this cliff through the three images, it can be seen
that it extends for hundreds of kilometers.
Cliffs that mark geologic escarpments on Mercury are called "rupes," which
is simply the Latin word for cliff. On Mercury, rupes are named after the
ships of famous explorers, and names include Discovery Rupes, for a ship
of Captain Cook, Santa Maria Rupes, for a ship of Christopher Columbus,
and Victoria Rupes, for a ship of Ferdinand Magellan. (The word rupes is
both singular and plural). The MESSENGER team proposed to the
International Astronomical Union, which has the final say on all names of
landforms on planets and satellites, that this cliff be named the Beagle
Rupes, after the ship on which naturalist Charles Darwin sailed around the
world. Today the MESSENGER team received word that the proposed name has
received formal approval.
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 108827037
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.