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A Side of Mercury Not Seen By Mariner 10 | | Gerald Cecil
; Dmitry Rashkeev
; | | Date: |
1 Aug 2007 | | Abstract: | More than 60,000 images of Mercury were taken at ~29 deg elevation during two
sunrises, at 820 nm, and through a 1.35 m diameter off-axis aperture on the
SOAR telescope. The sharpest resolve 0.2" (140 km) and cover 190-300 deg
longitude -- a swath unseen by the Mariner 10 spacecraft -- at complementary
phase angles to previous ground-based optical imagery. Our view is comparable
to that of the Moon through weak binoculars. Evident are the large crater
Mozart shadowed on the terminator, fresh rayed craters, and other albedo
features keyed to topography and radar reflectivity, including the putative
huge ``Basin S’’ on the limb. Classical bright feature Liguria resolves across
the northwest boundary of the Caloris basin into a bright splotch centered on a
sharp, 20 km diameter radar crater, and is the brightest feature within a
prominent darker ``cap’’ (Hermean feature Solitudo Phoenicis) that covers much
of the northern hemisphere between longitudes 80-250 deg. The cap may result
from space weathering that darkens via a magnetically enhanced flux of the
solar wind, or that reddens low latitudes via high solar insolation. | | Source: | arXiv, 0708.0146 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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