Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p43e..07b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P43E-07
Mathematics
Logic
[5400] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, [5410] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Composition, [5464] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Remote Sensing, [6235] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mercury
Scientific paper
The MESSENGER spacecraft began orbital observations of Mercury in March 2011. The Mercury Dual Imaging System is acquiring global monochrome and multispectral image maps. Complementing the global maps are special targeted observations with resolutions as good as 10 m/pixel for monochrome and 80 m/pixel for multispectral images. These high-resolution morphology and color images reveal an unusual landform on Mercury, characterized by small (tens of meters to a few kilometers), fresh-appearing, irregularly shaped, shallow, rimless depressions, often occurring in clusters and in association with high-reflectance materials. The features ("hollows") are commonly found on the central peaks, floors, walls, and rims of impact craters or basins, implying a link to material brought near the surface from depth during crater formation. Hollows occur in both rayed (Kuiperian) craters as well as older degraded craters. They have been identified over a range of latitudes (approximately 54 deg. S to 66 deg. N) and at longitudes for which images with adequate spatial resolution and appropriate illumination and viewing conditions have been collected. The hollows are found in locations known from prior flyby observations to have characteristic high reflectance and a shallow slope of spectral reflectance versus wavelength relative to the global average. The most likely formation mechanisms for the hollows involve recent loss of volatiles through some combination of sublimation, sputtering, outgassing, or pyroclastic volcanism. A hollow found on the south-facing inner wall of a crater at a high northern latitude suggests a correlation with peak diurnal temperatures. The involvement of volatiles in formation mechanisms for the hollows fits with growing evidence that Mercury's interior contains higher abundances of volatile materials than predicted by most scenarios for the formation of the Solar System's innermost planet. Mercury is a small rocky-metal world whose internal geological activity was generally thought to have ended long ago. The presence of potentially recent surface modification by non-impact processes implies that Mercury's endogenic geological evolution may still be ongoing.
Baker Mark D.
Blewett Dave T.
Braden Sarah
Chabot Nancy Lynne
Denevi Brett Wilcox
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