New Mercury pictures thrill scientists
After 32 years and two space probe missions, mankind finally knows what the back side of the planet Mercury looks like.
About the same as the front.
But pictures of the planet, pockmarked by craters, baked by the sun—and gratefully received by scientists on Earth overnight Tuesday—have finally filled massive holes in the map of Mercury that persisted since the last space probe visited the sun-blasted planet in the early 1970s.
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft captured this image on January 14, 2008, during its closest approach to Mercury. The image reveals a variety of intriguing surface features, including craters as small as 300 yards across. The image also shows landscapes near Mercury’s equator on the side of the planet never before imaged by spacecraft. These highly detailed close-ups enable planetary geologists to study the processes that have shaped Mercury’s surface over the past 4 billion years. One of the highest and longest cliffs yet seen on Mercury curves from the top center down across the right side of this image. Great forces in Mercury’s crust have thrust the terrain occupying the left two-thirds of the picture up and over the terrain to the right. An impact crater has subsequently destroyed a small part of the cliff near the top of the image.
——————————————————————-
- I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.
