Cratered Mercury

About 58 minutes before MESSENGER’s closest approach to Mercury on Oct. 6, 2008, the Narrow Angle Camera captured this close-up image of a portion of Mercury’s surface -- imaged by spacecraft for the first time during this flyby. The features in the foreground, near the right side of the image, are close to the terminator, the line between the sunlit dayside and dark night side of the planet, so shadows are long and prominent. Two very long scarps, or cliffs, are visible in this region, and the scarps appear to crosscut each other. The easternmost scarp also cuts through a crater, showing that it formed after the impact that created the crater. Other neighboring impact craters, such as in the upper left of this image, appear to be filled with smooth plains material.