PIA02408: Mercury's Cratered Terrain

Target Name: Mercury Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun) Mission: MVM Spacecraft: Mariner 10 Instrument: Imaging Science Subsystem - Narrow Angle Product Size: 356 samples x 311 lines Produced By: JPL Producer ID: P14467 Addition Date: 1999-10-08 Other Information: Mariner 10 Image Project Full-Res TIFF: PIA02408.tif (132 kB) Full-Res JPEG: PIA02408.jpg (39.23 kB)

Original Caption Released with Image: Cratered terrain very similar to that on the Moon is portrayed in this TV photo (FDS 27431) of Mercury taken by Mariner 10 on March 29 from a range of 31,000 kilometers (19,300 miles). The large flat-floored crater at right is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) in diameter-about the dame size as the lunar crater Copernicus. Numerous small craters and linear grooves radial to the crater probably are ejecta thrown from the crater by impact. The surface is illuminated from the left. 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. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Northwestern University Image Credit: NASA/JPL