Mercurian "Pond" (Absolute Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga - Lunexit Team)

This image shows a small Pond of impact melt that was ejected from a Crater just out of view. The melt ponded in this low, forming a smooth surface similar to the Melt Ponds south of Kuiper Crater. North is toward the upper right corner.

This image was acquired as a High-Resolution targeted observation. Targeted observations are images of a small area on Mercury's Surface at resolutions much higher than the 250-meter/pixel (820 feet/pixel) morphology base map or the 1-Km/pixel (0,6 miles/pixel) color base map. It is not possible to cover all of Mercury's Surface at this high resolution during MESSENGER's one-year mission, but several areas of high scientific interest are generally imaged in this mode each week.

Date acquired: November 06, 2011
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 229105038
Image ID: 980525
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Center Latitude: 63,9° North
Center Longitude: 256,5° East
Resolution: 16 meters/pixel
Scale: the smooth region is approximately 3 Km (about 1,9 miles) across
Solar Incidence Angle: 69,5° (meaning that the Sun is about 20,5° above the Local Horizon)
Emission Angle: 15,6°
Sun-Mercury-MESSENGER (such as "Phase") Angle: 85,2°