|
New Names for Features on Mercury
- Click the image above for a larger view
- Full-Res JPEG (1414 x 1414) (308.8 kB)
- Full-Res TIFF (1414 x 1414) (2.0 MB)
Caption:
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently approved new names for features on Mercury that were all seen for the first time in images taken by MESSENGER during the spacecraft's first flyby of the planet. Read the full press release for additional details about the naming process and the origin of the names, and visit the U.S. Geological Survey website, the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature , to learn about all of the named planetary features in the Solar System.
This image, produced by mosaicking many Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images together, shows the locations of the newly named features, along with the craters Basho, Mozart, and Tolstoj, first seen by the Mariner 10 mission. Close-up views of many of these features are available in the MESSENGER website image gallery. In particular, look at these previous releases for NAC high-resolution images of Apollodorus , Beagle Rupes , Eminescu , Mozart , Neruda , Pantheon Fossae , Raditladi , and Sander .
Background Info:
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 .
Cataloging Keywords:
| Name | Value | Additional Values |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Mercury | |
| System | ||
| Target Type | Planet | |
| Mission | MESSENGER | Mariner |
| Instrument Host | MESSENGER | Mariner 10 |
| Host Type | Orbiter | Flyby Spacecraft |
| Instrument | Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) | |
| Detector | Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) | |
| Extra Keywords | Crater, Grayscale | |
| Acquisition Date | ||
| Release Date | 2008-04-29 | |
| Date in Caption | ||
| Image Credit | NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington | |
| Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10611 | |
| Identifier | PIA10611 | |
