English: Date acquired: April 10, 2011

Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 210935602, 210935622, 210935606 Image ID: 114272, 114277, 114273 Instrument: Wide Angle Camera (WAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) WAC filters: 9, 7, 6 (996, 748, 433 nanometers) in red, green, and blue Center Latitude: -2.50° Center Longitude: 316.5° E Resolution: 975 meters/pixel Scale: The scene is about 1040 km (645 mi.) wide. Incidence Angle: 13.3° Emission Angle: 14.7° Phase Angle: 28.0°

Of Interest: At the center of this scene is an area of dark, deep blue terrain. MESSENGER scientists refer to this as the "Low Reflectance Material (LRM)." Besides being dark across all wavelengths, the LRM reflects less light at longer wavelengths than does average Mercury material. Our eyes perceive light at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum as red, and the short end as blue. Hence the LRM is said to have "blue" color relative to Mercury as a whole. Named craters in the scene include Kuiper, Yeats, Dominici, and Homer.

This image was acquired as part of MDIS's 8-color base map. The 8-color base map is composed of WAC images taken through eight different narrow-band color filters and covers more than 99% of Mercury's surface with an average resolution of 1 kilometer/pixel. The highest-quality color images are obtained for Mercury's surface when both the spacecraft and the Sun are overhead, so these images typically are taken with viewing conditions of low incidence and emission angles.