Mercury’s stunning landscape mapped
New topography reveals sharp details of planet’s craters, mountains, more
Mercury has never looked better. Volcanic plains, craters, mountains and valleys are showcased in the first complete topographic map of the innermost planet, released May 6.
Stitched together from over 100,000 images taken by NASA’s now-defunct MESSENGER spacecraft, the global catalog of landscapes provide data that researchers can use to better understand the history and inner workings of the scorched world. Researchers also used X-ray data to map changes in chemical composition from place to place.