Date Acquired: October 5, 2008
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 131695690
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Resolution: 10 kilometers/pixel (6.2 miles/pixel)
Scale: Mercury's diameter is 4880 kilometers (3030 miles)
Spacecraft Altitude: 390,000 kilometers (240,000 miles)
Sub-spacecraft Latitude and Longitude: 1.6°N, 131.2°E
Of Interest: The countdown to MESSENGER's second Mercury flyby continues. This image is from the seventh set of optical navigation images and was taken about 20 hours before MESSENGER's upcoming closest approach to Mercury, which will occur on October 6, 2008, 04:40:22 am EDT. Similar to the results from
the six earlier image sets, everything looks as planned for the flyby. One more set of optical navigation images will be acquired before MESSENGER begins its planned Mercury science flyby observations.
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.