images

Mariner 10 photomosaic of the Caloris Basin on Mercury

by

JPL/Novapix

Reference

a-mer03-00010

Date

2006-09-28

Caloris Basin is the most prominent feature on Mercury, shown in this image bisected by the terminator. The basin was formed by a massive collision early in Mercury's history. This mosaic ws produced with images from all 3 encounters. The image is 900 km across and north is up. The largest basin on Mercury (1300 km or 800 miles across) was named Caloris (Greek for "hot") because it is one of the two areas on the planet that face the Sun at perihelion.