Mercury Crater Exhibits 'Artistic' Bright Rays: Big Pic
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Feb. 10, 2012 -- Named after a 12th century Chinese artist, Xiao Zhao is a young 15-mile (24-kilometer) wide crater on Mercury. Its broad, bright rays indicate its youthfulness, as the lighter material ejected by the initial impact has not yet had enough time to grow dark.
"Young" is a relative term, of course. On Mercury that can still mean several billion years old!
PHOTOS: First Photos from Mercury Orbit
This color image was made with a combination of images acquired by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft on Dec. 29, 2011 with its Wide-Angle Camera (WAC). The individual images were captured in eight different wavelengths, some of which would be visible to the human eye.
Just to the right of Xiao Zhao is the larger Eastman crater.
By IAU agreement, all newly-discovered craters on Mercury are named after deceased international artists, authors and composers who have made outstanding contributions to their field and have been recognized as significant figures for at least 50 years.
WIDE ANGLE: Mission to Mercury
On March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011, UTC), MESSENGER became the first spacecraft ever to orbit Mercury. The mission has provided the first data from Mercury since Mariner 10, over 30 years ago. With 98 percent of Mercury now imaged in detail, we now know more about our solar system's innermost planet than ever before.
-- by Jason Major.
Image credit: Image credit: NASA/John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.
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