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Different sun angle reveals different features of Mercury

Different sun angle reveals different features of Mercury
Different sun angle reveals different features of Mercury These two images show roughly the same region of Mercury as seen by Mariner 10 with slanting sunlight (left) and by MESSENGER with the Sun nearly overhead (right). Low sun emphasizes topography, while high sun emphasizes albedo variations (how the brightness of the surface changes from place to place). The yellow arrows point to the 90-kilometer- (56-mile-) diameter crater Asvaghosa, and the purple arrows indicate a smaller crater to the southwest. In the Mariner 10 image, the slanting light reveals the presence of a scarp named Santa Maria Rupes (white arrows) that is invisible in the MESSENGER images. On the other hand, the high Sun in the MESSENGER image makes visible a bright ray that crosses Asvaghosa and the smaller crater, which is invisible in the Mariner 10 image. NASA / JPL-Caltech ; NASA / JHUAPL / CIW