开云体育

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 May 1

Explanation: to orbit inner planet Mercury, the spacecraft on this region of Mercury's surface on April 30, 2015. Constructed from MESSENGER image and laser altimeter data, the projected scene looks north over the northeastern rim of the broad, lava filled . The large, 48 kilometer (30 mile) wide crater Janacek is near the upper left edge. Terrain height is color coded with red regions about 3 kilometers above blue ones. was predicted to end near the center, with the spacecraft impacting the surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour) and creating a new crater about 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. The impact on the far side of Mercury was not observed by telescopes, but confirmed when no signal was detected from the spacecraft given time to emerge from behind the planet. Launched in 2004, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemisty and Ranging spacecraft completed over 4,000 orbits after reaching the Solar System's innermost planet in 2011.

Authors & editors: () & ()
NASA Official: Amber Straughn .

A service of: at / ,

&