A Spider Shaped Crater on Mercury
Explanation:
Why does this crater on Mercury look like a spider?
When the robotic
MESSENGER spacecraft
glided by the planet
Mercury
last month, it was able to image portions of the Sun's closest planet that had never
been seen before.
When imaging the center of Mercury's extremely large
Caloris Basin,
MESSENGER found a crater,
pictured
above, with a set of unusual
rays emanating out from its center.
A crater with such troughs has never been seen before anywhere in
our Solar System.
What isn't clear is the
relation of the crater to the radial troughs.
Perhaps the crater created the
radial rays, or perhaps the two features appear only by a chance superposition
--
the topic is sure to be one of future research.
MESSENGER is
scheduled to fly past Mercury twice more before
firing its thrusters to
enter orbit in 2011.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
