Southern Mercury

-->

Pictures from the last Messenger flyby are still being released.  I like the perspective of some of the horizon shots. This one for example is of southern Mercury and you can almost sense the shape of the planet as opposed to a simple flat image.

If you click here, you will find an annotated version with the features named some of which are referenced in the caption from the Messenger website I’ve included below:

Of Interest: MESSENGER’s second Mercury flyby passed over the opposite side of the planet from that seen during the mission’s first Mercury encounter. Thus, if one could follow this view obtained by the NAC during the second flyby toward the south, beyond Mercury’s south pole, it would lead to the surface seen in an image from MESSENGER’s first Mercury flyby.

Visible in the recently obtained image shown here are many features also seen by Mariner 10: Shevchenko crater named for the 19^th century Ukrainian poet, Khansa for the Arabic poet of the 7th century, Rabelais for the Renaissance French writer, Holberg for the Norwegian-Danish writer of the 18^th century, Spitteler for the Swiss epic poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919, Rameau for the Baroque-era French composer, Puccini for the Italian composer of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Horace for the ancient Roman poet. Discovery Rupes cuts through Rameau and is named for the ship of English explorer Captain James Cook.