Warhol Crater

Filed under pretty pictures, amateur image processing, Mercury, MESSENGER, geology, impact cratering

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Mercury's Warhol Crater as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft, showing mysterious 'hollows' and a crater chain.

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/Bill Dunford

Landmarks on Mercury are named for artists and writers. This previously unpublished view of Warhol Crater was composited from raw images sent by the MESSENGER spacecraft. There are at least a couple of interesting features visible: a distinct crater chain, and the many pits in the main crater known as 'hollows'. Mercury explorers are still trying to understand how and why these hollows form.

Copyright holder: Bill Dunford

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about April 14, 2011