Date acquired: March 29, 2012
<p>Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 241497908
Image ID: 1578541
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: -39.25°
Center Longitude: 275.6° E
Resolution: 197 meters/pixel
Scale: Copley is 35 km (22 miles) in diameter.
Incidence Angle: 59.2°
Emission Angle: 15.6°
Phase Angle: 43.6°
</p><p>Of Interest: This NAC image features the complex crater Copley, the bright crater located just slightly northwest of the center of this image. It's named after John Singleton Copley, an American painter known for portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England. Copley features a bright central peak and neighbors the larger crater Carducci, which is positioned just to the west of this image.
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This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution albedo base map. The best images for discerning variations in albedo, or brightness, on the surface are acquired when the Sun is overhead, so these images typically are taken with low incidence angles. The albedo base map is a major mapping campaign in MESSENGER's extended mission and will cover Mercury's surface at an average resolution of 200 meters/pixel.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
2012-08-03
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://messenger.jhuapl.edu/Explore/Science-Images-Database/gallery-image-927.html">A PORTRAIT OF COPLEY CRATER</a>