Newly released MESSENGER images of Mercury (DIALUP WARNING!) [View All]

[TechBear_Seattle]

A few selections from the MESSENGER mission multimedia archive at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/index.html




Mercury in color. Probes typically take several black-and-white images through polarized filters which let in only specific bandwidths of light. Back on Earth, these images are "tinted" and combined to give a single, near-true color image. This technique allows for greater detail of the images, improves error correction techniques (if a few bits get scrambled in one image, they can be reconstructed from the other images), peer into ultraviolet and infrared and "stretch out" the colors to reveal details that might otherwise be hidden. The Pioneer images appear brown and orange because they are not actual light images but radar; the technique used to render the images gave them a false sepia tone.



This is a side of Mercury not imaged by Pioneer.




Mercury is covered by very long cliffs such as this. They are believed to have been caused by the planet having "shrunk" as it cooled, causing its rigid crust to buckle. Similar cliffs would have occured on Venus, Earth and Mars as well, but the weather on those planets has long since erased them.




The mission site describes this image as a picture of the crater Matisse. I think it is the largest one at right center. Mercury's craters are named for people now deceased to made contributions to the humanities, including painters, poets, authors and musicians.


Edited to repair a link.