A Trio of Craters: Munch, Sander, and Poe

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Caption:

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Sander, Munch, and Poe are a trio of impact craters within the Caloris impact basin ( PIA10359 ). Munch and Poe were recently named ( PIA11762 ), while Sander received its name in the first set of feature names ( PIA10611 ) after MESSENGER's first Mercury flyby. Munch is named for Edvard Munch (1863-1944), the Norwegian artist and painter of The Scream. The crater Poe takes its name from Edgar Allan Poe, the 19th century American writer and poet. Sander is named for the German photographer August Sander (1876-1964). Sander crater exhibits very bright material within its crater rim, while Munch and Poe each are surrounded by dark material. The presence of both bright and dark materials suggest that there is a diversity of rock types on and below Mercury's surface, with different mineralogical compositions from those of the volcanic plains that comprise the majority of the floor of Caloris basin. The three craters are located in the far northern part of the Caloris basin. The basin rim ( PIA10942 ), indicated by yellow arrows, can be seen in the upper left and extending across the top of this image, and many fractures within Caloris basin ( PIA10606 ) are visible in the lower portion of this image.

Date Acquired: January 14, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 108828587
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 520 meters/pixel (0.32 miles/pixel)
Scale: This image is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) across
Spacecraft Altitude: 20,400 kilometers (12,400 miles)

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 .

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