The Monster of All Worlds

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Caption:

This series of craters located in the eastern portion of the floor of Copland crater are aligned in a way that looks a bit like the toes of a giant foot (perhaps with a dislocated and swollen pinky toe). Though Halloween is fast approaching, this was certainly not formed by a 100 km tall giant stomping across the planet, but rather due to the intersection of several crater chains created by secondary impacts .

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: August 02, 2014
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 49288744
Image ID: 6796897
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 37.45°
Center Longitude: 75.07° E
Resolution: 12 meters/pixel
Scale: This image is 6.3 km (3.9 mi.) across.
Incidence Angle: 77.6°
Emission Angle: 2.3°
Phase Angle: 75.2°

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. During the first two years of orbital operations, MESSENGER acquired over 150,000 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is capable of continuing orbital operations until early 2015.

For information regarding the use of images, see the MESSENGER image use policy .

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