Pictures of Mercury from MESSENGER Spacecraft

This is one of the first images of Mercury acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft. It shows Mercury's heavily cratered surface. The craters range in age from very old to very young. Older craters can be recognized because numerous younger craters can be seen within them or cutting their rims. The rough surface surrounding the large crater in the lower right corner of the image is ejecta (debris blasted from the crater at the time of impact). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

This image reveals some of the geologic history of Mercury. Note how many of the craters have been filled by lava flows, producing a flat surface. These lava surfaces have a much younger age that the surrounding landscape and are shown with the letter "L" on the supplemental image. Their younger age can be determined because they have a low density of impact craters. A large fault is visible in this image and marked with a dashed line on the supplemental image. Note how it cuts across the medium size crater in the upper left of this images. This reveals that the fault was active after the crater had formed. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

This image shows more of Mercury's heavily cratered surface. This image shows a relatively young crater with bright "rays" of ejected material extending outwards in all directions from the crater's center. The bright rays are shown as dashed lines on the supplemental image. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

This image shows a large, relatively recent impact crater. The walls of this crater were very steep when it formed but afterwards slumping of the steep walls produced a terraced crater rim. When the impact occurred, the blast launched large volumes of ejecta into the air. These blanketed the surface with debris and the larger fragments of ejecta produced hundreds of smaller craters around the parent crater. The cratered surface of Mercury is complex. It has many craters caused by direct impacts and many craters produced by the infall of ejecta. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

This image was captured by MESSENGER during its closest approach to Mercury. It shows some craters as small as 300 yards across. It also shows one of the highest and longest fault scarps discovered on the planet. Forces within the planet produced the fault by lifting the terrain on the left side of the image. Later a younger impact crater obliterated a portion of the scarp. The region shown in this image is about 100 miles across. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.