About 91 minutes after MESSENGER’s closest pass by the planet, MDIS
acquired this image of Mercury’s northern surface, which is one in a set
of 48 that form a mosaic of the departing planet. In this image, the left
portion of the surface fades into darkness at the terminator, the line
between the sunlit dayside of the planet and the dark night side. The
left-side portions of the surface that are just coming out of the darkness
are being hit with the first rays of morning sunlight. Some of the surface
to the right of this scene can be viewed in this previously released image
looking toward Mercury’s north pole (PIA10193).
Date Acquired: January 14, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 108830334
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging
System (MDIS)
Resolution: 0.8 kilometers/pixel (0.5 miles/pixel)
Scale: The width of this image is about 800 kilometers (500 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 30,700 kilometers (19,100 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.