By Ed Bell and Phil Saunders
Like the terrestrial maps used by early navigators, maps of the other planets continue to become more and more detailed. The recent flybys of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft have added a new level of visual detail to the closest planet to the sun, allowing astronomers to better understand its origins and evolution. And a wealth of new data should be forthcoming soon; on March 17, MESSENGER is scheduled to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.
The U.S. Geological Survey and the MESSENGER team have combined images from the 1973–75 Mariner 10 mission with images from MESSENGER's flybys to produce the first global mosaic map of Mercury. This map covers 97.7 percent of the planet's surface. You can view details of some of the more interesting and beautiful areas of this unique world in the following interactive feature.
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18 Comments
Add CommentVery nice! I especially like the Vivaldi crater...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswoo！It's so cool ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery nice! I look forward to more exciting images as time moves on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat are the false colours representing? Is it temperature?
I wish the picture of Pantheon Fossae had been printed upside down. We normally interpret lighting as falling from the top (or top left), so lighting from the bottom made everything look like bumps and ridges instead of craters and troughs. I had to turn the display upside down, and my brain still refuses to see the upright image as a crater. Similarly, but even more resistant to inversion, the image for Rachmaninoff persists in looking like bumps at all angles.
Am I looking at this correctly?Is there a band of craters that circles the whole planet?How is that possible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat....guess again....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect it just looks that way because the angle of the sun causes shadows at the point where curvature transistions from day to night.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAm I going to be able to tour Mercury on Google Earth yet? This is very cool.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTry this for now: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=414 - I'm not sure if it's going to updated or more integrated in the future
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMercury is a doomed planet; it has no atmosphere; the temperature on it is very extreme; on one hemisphere that permanently faces the sun the heat is tremendous, while on the opposite side the coldness is bitterly severe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoreover, it contracted and fissures appeared on its surface, in addition to the large number of craters on its surface due to the falling of a large number of comets.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/universe/new_page_4.htm#The_Burnt_World
Yawn... when are we going to Europa and Titan?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoomed in what sense? Lacking an atmosphere does not make for a doomed planet on its own. If doomed means that it will stop existing in the near future, then it is not doomed. If it's not suitable for human habitation, it still is not doomed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep! Here are the instructions from the MESSENGER mission site. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/google.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe colors in the Caloris Basin image represent different brightness and color variations (visible to near infrared, 400-1000nm). So you can think of the colors as different compositions and length of exposure at the surface (space weathering). This image was published by Robinson et al. in Science, 2008. They identify the colors as: red - the inverse of principal component 1, green - principal component 2, blue - relative visible color (430nm/560nm). Principal components are a mathematical transformation of the data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMessenger, has brought us closer to the total exploration of the inner solar system, before long we will have mapped all of the inner planets. While Messenger is circumnavigating Mercury, the Voyager twins are on the verge of leaving the solar system and become the first human probes to step foot outside our solar system. We are now caught between a messenger and two voyagers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNext phase of the Age of Solaria is the exploration of the Outer Planets and the Kepler Belt.
Am I the only one cringing to see SA feeling compelled to clarify that the double-ringed crater Vivaldi is "...named after the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi," or that the crater Rembrandt is "...named after the Dutch painter...," or Debussy is "...a French composer..."? Who else could these luminaries be? Vivaldi? Oh, that's the weatherman that's always talking about seasons. Rembrandt? Isn't that a brand of toothpaste popular among astronomers? Debussy? Isn't he related to that Gary Busey guy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dread the day when the naming committees have exhausted all names are are forced to use contemporary entries. Imagine Europa's Ryan Sea Crest, or Io's Tyra Banks. What will the Mercurians think then?!?
Discovery Scarp - wow! - 3km high, stretching a sharp and seemingly endless contrast against what must be a blazing sky... Would be fantastic to witness first hand if it were ever to be possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat are the bright spots .do they represent some sort of volcanic activity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat really is quite silly. Physics trumps belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems rather depressing as a belief system.
Fortunately the solar system will continue and
as we explore, find even more about ourselves and
the universe.