During the two years of
its location in orbit around Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has made
more than 150,000 images of the planet closest to the Sun, the solar system,
first giving us the opportunity to think about the extremely rough, parched
surface of the planet in feature. But not all areas on Mercury look stern and
sinister: it also has a smooth side, you can see on the picture, published
today.
Here we see the smooth
sides and bottom Mercurian irregular depressions in high definition.
This velvety
texture is the result of extensive scattering by small particles of the
planet's surface, due to the fact that, unlike many of the ancient topography
of Mercury, this hollow, devoid of circular wall, formed not by a collision
with a space object, but rather as a result of volcanic eruption of lava from
the planet's interior.
Earlier, MESSENGER is
sending images of the Depression, but this photo is characterized by its
extremely high resolution - about 26 meters per pixel.
No comments:
Post a Comment