Newly Named Abedin in Mercury’s North

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Caption:

This impact crater in the high northern latitudes of Mercury was recently named for the Bangladeshi painter Zainul Abedin (1914-1976) (see PIA12157 ). Abedin exhibits a complex crater structure with a smooth floor, wall terraces, and a central peak complex. The chains of smaller craters surrounding Abedin are secondary craters formed by ejecta from the initial impact. The northwestern (upper left in this view) section of Abedin's continuous ejecta blanket appears to have a lower reflectance than the rest of the material adjacent to the crater rim. This pattern suggests that the darker material resided at some depth beneath the northwestern portion of the pre-impact target area and was excavated and redeposited during the crater's formation.

Abedin can be seen near the top of this full planet mosaic ( PIA11245 ) near a spectacular rayed crater ( PIA11768 ), whose rays extend into this image from the lower right.

Date Acquired: October 6, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131774353
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 580 meters/pixel (0.36 miles/pixel)
Scale: Abedin is 110 kilometers in diameter (68 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 22,800 kilometers (14,200 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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