Date acquired: November 09, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 229323911
Image ID: 990827
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -28.84°
Center Longitude: 224.3° E
Resolution: 120 meters/pixel
Scale: Bartok crater has a diameter of 117 km (73 miles)
Incidence Angle: 31.0°
Emission Angle: 51.8°
Phase Angle: 79.3°
Of Interest: This oblique view of
Bartok accentuates the
central peaks and terraced walls of this complex crater. Bright material is visible on the central peaks, which may be due to the presence of
hollows, like those that have been discovered on
the central peak-ring mountains of the Raditladi impact basin and at
many other locations on Mercury.
This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions higher than the 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel (0.6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.
The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury, and the spacecraft's
seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the
Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the key science questions that the MESSENGER mission is addressing. During the one-year primary mission, MDIS is scheduled to acquire more than 75,000 images in support of MESSENGER's science goals.
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.