PIA15201: Close-up Shot of To Ngoc Van


Close-up Shot of To Ngoc Van

Caption:

Prominent near the center of the degraded crater To Ngoc Van is an irregularly shaped pit. Examples of pit-floor craters have been identified across Mercury's surface and are likely formed by past volcanic activity . To Ngoc Van was named in 2009 in honor of the 20 th century Vietnamese painter.

This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel (0.6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.

Date acquired: November 08, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 229277972
Image ID: 988708
Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
WAC filter: 7 (748 nanometers)
Center Latitude: 52.89°
Center Longitude: 248.6° E
Resolution: 68 meters/pixel
Scale: The irregularly shaped pit is roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) across
Incidence Angle: 60.3°
Emission Angle: 23.0°
Phase Angle: 83.4°

Background Info:

The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the key science questions that the MESSENGER mission is addressing. During the one-year primary mission, MDIS is scheduled to acquire more than 75,000 images in support of MESSENGER's science goals.

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
Instrument Host MESSENGER
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Detector Wide Angle Camera (WAC)
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale, Map, Radio, Volcano
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2011-12-08
Date in Caption 2011-11-08
Image Credit NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15201
Identifier PIA15201