Oblique view of Amaral crater on Mercury.  MESSENGER Narrow Angle Camera image. Approximate north is to the left.<br>JHU caption:<br><p>Of Interest: Named in 2008 for the Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral, Amaral crater was imaged during MESSENGER's first Mercury flyby and discovered to contain bright central peaks that were relatively blue in color compared to the surrounding terrain. The peaks resembled those of Eminescu in color, now known to be the location of an impressive collection of hollows. This spectacular image of Amaral highlights the topography of the peaks inside the crater but doesn't show wide-spread hollows as seen within Eminescu, though there may be a hint that perhaps the bright tips of Amaral's peaks do host hollows.
This image was acquired as a high-resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-kilometer/pixel (0.6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.<br>
Emission Angle: 56.4<br>
Incidence Angle: 84.9<br>
Latitude: -26.6<br>
Longitude: 118.2<br></p>
Phase Angle: 28.6
NASA
2012-02-04
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://messenger.jhuapl.edu/Explore/Science-Images-Database/gallery-image-765.html">OH AMARAL!</a>