PIA16759: Turtle Power!


Turtle Power!

Caption:

Here, the peak-ringed Michelangelo basin is seen close to the terminator. Hawthorne crater (outside this image field of view past the upper right corner) may be the source of the secondary crater chains that cross through the basin. North is towards the bottom of this image.

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 200-meter/pixel morphology base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution, but typically several areas of high scientific interest are imaged in this mode each week.

Date acquired: March 26, 2012
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 241236952
Image ID: 1566240
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -44.13°
Center Longitude: 251.5° E
Resolution: 369 meters/pixel
Scale: Michelangelo basin is approximately 230 km (143 mi.) in diameter.
Incidence Angle: 83.6°
Emission Angle: 37.6°
Phase Angle: 67.5°

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 acquired 88,746 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is now in a year-long extended mission, during which plans call for the acquisition of more than 80,000 additional images to support MESSENGER's science goals.

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 Narrow Angle Camera (NAC)
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale, Map, Radio
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2013-01-24
Date in Caption 2012-03-26
Image Credit NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16759
Identifier PIA16759