Rays from the Darkness: Basho Crater (MULTISPECTRUM-2; credits: Lunexit)

Though Basho Crater is only about 80 Km (ABOUT 50 miles) in diameter, its bright rays make it an easily identified feature on Mercury's surface. In addition to the long bright rays, photographs from Mariner 10 showed an intriguing dark halo of material around the Crater, which can be seen in the lower right portion of this Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) image snapped by MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on January 14, 2008. The MESSENGER Science Team is using the full color data set obtained with the 11 filters of the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) to investigate the nature and composition of this dark material.

The Crater is named for the 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, renowned for his many haiku. MESSENGER's images of Mercury's striking landscape have inspired at least one poet; read Stuart Atkinson's poem " MESSENGER's Memories."