Date Acquired: October 4, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131609290
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 21 kilometers/pixel (13 miles/pixel)
Scale: Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 840,000 kilometers (520,000 miles)
Sub-spacecraft Latitude and Longitude: 1.6°N, 137.3°E
Of Interest: The fourth set of optical navigation images has been transmitted back to Earth, and the images confirm that MESSENGER is on target for a successful flyby of Mercury. An image from that fourth set is shown here, and
images from the first three sets have been released previously. The MESSENGER spacecraft continues to speed toward Mercury and will acquire an additional four sets of optical navigation images during the remaining approach.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
For information regarding the use of MESSENGER images, see the image use policy.