Scale: The width of this image is about 250 kilometers (150 miles)

Topographic information from the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) is used to colorize this image mosaic of Mercury's northern region. The purple colors are low and white is the highest; the total range of heights shown in this view is about 1 kilometer.

Note added in 2019: The names of the prominent dark violet craters to the left of the center are Gaudí and Stieglitz. Behind them in the upper centre of the image in cyan appears Mendelssohn crater. Hokusai is located in the lower left-side corner of the image. At half distance between Hokusai and Gaudí are three craters in green color, the right one near the center of the reddish white highland is Rivera. The Goethe crater is not visible in this image.

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 acquired 88,746 images and extensive other data sets. MESSENGER is now in a yearlong extended mission, during which plans call for the acquisition of more than 80,000 additional images to support MESSENGER’s science goals.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Brown University

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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