At top center is the first laser altimeter profile of Mercury's
topography, taken by MESSENGER's Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) instrument
during the spacecraft's flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. At bottom
center is the MLA ground projected onto a mosaic of radar images obtained
by Harmon and others at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The interval during which MESSENGER was sufficiently close to the planet
to be within measurement range of the MLA was when the spacecraft was on
the night side, so there are no corresponding images of this region
acquired by MESSENGER during this flyby; this region was also unseen by
Mariner 10. The length of the profile is about 3200 km (about 2000 miles),
and the dynamic range in elevation across the profile is about 5 km (about
3 miles). The profile sampled numerous craters and basins. The vertical
exaggeration in the figure is 105:1.
At top left is a photograph of the MLA flight unit.
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.
