USGS releases first topographic map of Mercury

Using data from NASA’s Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) have created and released the first-ever complete topographic map of Mercury.

The USGS team, along with colleagues from Arizona State University, Carnegie Institute of Washington, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory  and NASA, compiled the information collected by the orbiter’s cameras and instruments during its more than 4,000 trips around the planet to produce a detailed map of elevation changes and surface features.

According to the US space agency, the map is the first global digital elevation model of the solar system’s innermost planet and will enable scientists to complete characterize the geologic history of Mercury. It was part of the 15th and final data release from the MESSENGER mission, which has now shared more than 10 terabytes of science data and 300,000 images since 2011.

“The creation of this map is a prime example of the utility and beauty that can come out of overcoming complex cartographic problems,” Lazlo Kestay, Director of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center, said Friday in a press release. “This highly aesthetic product literally provides a whole new dimension to the study of Mercury images, opening many new paths to understanding the surface, interior, and past of the closest planet to the sun.”

“The wealth of these data, greatly enhanced by the extension of MESSENGER’s primary one-year mission to more than four years, has already enabled and will continue to enable exciting scientific discoveries about Mercury for decades to come,” added Susan Ensor, a Johns Hopkins software engineer who currently manages the MESSENGER Science Operations Center.

Model reveals the planet’s highest, lowest points of elevation

The USGS team and their colleagues used advanced software applications to identify the various landforms and geologic features on Mercury in more than 100,000 images obtained by the probe, then put them together to create a digital terrain map that covers the entire surface, including, for the first time, the topography of previously unmapped regions of the southern hemisphere.

This new, global model complements a previous version created using past measurements taken by the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA). Due to MESSENGER’s highly eccentric orbit, the MLA had only been able to collect primary measurements of the planet’s northern hemisphere and near equatorial region. The new model fills in the gaps, and reveals some interesting new features.

For instance, the map shows that the point of highest elevation on Mercury is located in some of the planet’s oldest terrain, just south of the equator. It is 2.78 miles (or 4.48 kilometers) higher than the average elevation level. The point of lowest elevation is 3.34 miles (or 5.38 kilometers) below average and is found on the floor of Rachmaninoff basin, a double-ring impact basin that is believed to be home to some of the most recent volcanic deposits on the planet.

“Production of the digital elevation model of Mercury is the capstone of a significant scientific achievement of the MESSENGER mission,” said Ralph McNutt, MESSENGER team member and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory scientist. “This product reveals the entirety of the innermost planet of the solar system… [and] as such, it is yet another indicator of the turning point from reconnaissance through exploration of Mercury by MESSENGER to an era of intensive study of Mercury in years to come.”

“We are eager to apply what we learned from this mapping effort to small bodies such as asteroids and comets, as well as other planets and moons,” added USGS computer scientist and lead map investigator Kris Becker.

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Image credit: USGS

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