Date Acquired: October 3, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131537288
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 31 kilometers/pixel (19 miles/pixel)
Scale: Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 1,200,000 kilometers (750,000 miles)
Sub-spacecraft Latitude and Longitude: 1.6°N, 142.8°E
Of Interest: With less than two days until MESSENGER's closest approach to Mercury, images from the second set of optical navigation images show that the spacecraft is on track for the upcoming Mercury encounter. This image shows that the thin crescent of Mercury now appears slightly larger than in
the image from the first set of optical navigation images taken about 12 hours earlier.
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.