NASA’s Messenger Craft Takes New Pictures Of Mercury
Hundreds of photos of Mercury were beamed to Earth by a U.S. spacecraft. The photos showed images of landscapes on the surface of the planet that have never been seen before. They released four of these high resolution pictures to the media - which were posted on NASA’s Messenger web site.
One of the pictures shows the Kuiper crater that is south of the planet’s center. Before this picture we have only caught small glimpses of this crater. The highest-resolution picture shows us a round basin the looks to be 83 miles in diameter and has been named Polygnotus.
This is not the first time that Messenger has flown by Mercury to try to uncover pictures of the mysterious planet. The pictures that were taken during its fist set showed volcanic eruptions that are thought to have produced many plains on Mercury. They also proved to scientists that the planet has contracted more then what they thought.
“The results from Messengers’ first flyby of Mercury resolved debates that are more than 30 years old,” said Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission’s principal investigator. “This second encounter will uncover even more information about the planet.”