Topography of Mercury from Imaging Data

Details Topography of Mercury from Imaging Data Topography of Mercury from Imaging Data

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.5105g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #51.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.490

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During its January 2008 flyby of Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft acquired over 1200 MDIS images of the planet. Combined with images obtained during the three Mariner 10 flybys, well over half of Mercury's surface has now been imaged. We present preliminary results for the topography of that surface obtained by applying stereography and stereophotoclinometry (SPC) to the images. The technique generates a series of overlapping digital topography/albedo maps called L-maps which can be accurately aligned with each other, in images and on limbs. The L-map centers play the role of control points for the stereographic analysis, which solves for body-fixed control point location, camera pointing and spacecraft position. The L-maps themselves are determined by minimizing the brightness residuals between images and illuminated L-maps. The results must be treated as provisional because there was no significant variation in illumination during the flyby to help distinguish brightness variations due to topography from those due to albedo and because the useful stereo separation was less then 10°. Where there was overlap between the two imaging data sets, local illumination differed by close to 90 degrees, rather too large for the assumptions underlying SPC. We present both global topography for the surface imaged so far and local topography for areas of geological interest, including lobate scarps, vents and craters of interest.

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