This is Mercury, but not as our eyes can see it.
The striking image is one of many to come from the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, or MESSENGER. We covered the craft as it entered orbit of the solar system's first planet one year ago, on March 17, 2011. In its first Earth year of work, MESSENGER sent home an incredible amount of data to help scientists understand what this scalding world is made of and how it has changed over a few billion years. It also sent home plenty of incredible images, such as this one.
What you're seeing is the ancient volcanic plains located in Mercury's northern high latitudes. The picture is color-coded by elevation: Purple represents the lowest point, white the highest. The MESSENGER team released this image, and the other below, in the journal Science today to go along with two new studies of the planet based on the spacecraft's data.
In the first, researchers used the laser altimeter on board the spacecraft to create this topographic map. What it tells them is that because the surface is so dominated by volcanic plains, the first planet must have been geophysically active for much of its life. In the second study, scientists created what they're calling the first accurate model of Mercury's gravitational field, which, combined with other factors, tells them about its internal structure. According to that team, if you looked at the radius of Mercury (imagine a line from the very center of the planet to its surface), the core would extend 85 percent of the way, which is further than scientists previously believed.
Because its first year was so successful, MESSENGER has been renewed for another year. So hopefully we'll see even striking images of one of the solar system's least-known worlds.
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