William Atkins
Monday, 25 May 2009 19:13
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
NASA’s Messenger space probe has found "wrinkle ridges" on the planet Mercury and U.S. mission team members say they look "bizarre" and something "we’re never seen anything like that" before in the Solar System.
Their research appears in the
Science magazine article “
Evolution of the Rembrandt Impact Basin on Mercury,” which appears in May 1, 2009 issue (volume 324, number 5917, pages 618-621, DOI: 10.1126/science.1172109).
See an image of the Rembrandt Impact Basin on Mercury at “NASA Astronomy Picture Of The Day”:
May 4, 2009.
The description of the impact basin, which accompanies the picture, states,
“The unusual Rembrandt impact basin was discovered recently in images taken during the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft's 2008 October flyby of the Solar System's innermost planet. The unusual Rembrandt spans over 700 kilometers and at 4 billion years old is possibly the youngest large impact basin on the planet.”
The
MESSENGER space probe is the first orbital mission to the planet Mercury, the Solar System’s innermost planet. MESSENGER stands for
“MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging.”
The abstract to their paper begins,
“MESSENGER’s second Mercury flyby revealed a ~715-kilometer-diameter impact basin, the second-largest well-preserved basin-scale impact structure known on the planet. The Rembrandt basin is comparable in age to the Caloris basin, is partially flooded by volcanic plains, and displays a unique wheel-and-spoke–like pattern of basin-radial and basin-concentric wrinkle ridges and graben.”
The authors of the study include: Thomas R. Watters, James W. Head, Sean C. Solomon, Mark S. Robinson, Clark R. Chapman, Brett W. Denevi, Caleb I. Fassett, Scott L. Murchie, and Robert G. Strom.
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