Monday, September 28, 2009

Adding to my earlier Mariner 10 at Mercury post.  Here is a sequence showing the view as the spacecrat approached and receeded from the planet.  Comparing the images will show a small amount of planetary rotation.



In Mariner 10's last glimpses as it receeded from Mercury, the planet had rotate enough so that Mozart, the large crater near the center of the terminator, could clearly be seen (it was in darkness during closes approach) and the deep crater near the center of Caloris (and clearly seen in Messenger images) has rotated into view.  The image on the right has been processed using a high pass filter to emphasize topography.

Processed images Copyright Ted Stryk, Raw Data Courtesy NASA/JPL

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