A Cubist's Crater
February 3, 2012

Title	:	A Cubist's Crater
Description	:	This image, taken with the Narrow Angle Camera (NAC), gives us a close-up look at Picasso crater. Named for Pablo Picasso, the 20th century Spanish painter, sculptor and father of Cubism, this crater is easily identifiable by the interesting comma-shaped pit on its floor. The pit may have formed when subsurface magma drained, causing the surface to collapse and leaving a void in its place. This image was acquired as part of MDIS's high-resolution stereo base map. The stereo base map is used in combination with the surface morphology base map to create high-resolution stereo views of Mercury's surface, with an average resolution of 250 meters/pixel (0.16 miles/pixel or 820 feet/pixel) or better. During MESSENGER's one-year mission, the surface morphology base map is acquired during the first 176 days, and the second 176 days are used to acquire the complementary stereo base map, which includes the image here.
Date	:	February 3, 2012
Credit	:	NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Source	:	Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
File Type	:	JPG
File Size	:	204kb