Messenger Discovers "Spider" Crater on Mercury

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property brings us a Washington Post story which discusses how scientists are finding surprises among the pictures sent back from Mercury by the Messenger spacecraft. In particular, images depicting a crater with over 100 troughs radiating out from it are stumping researchers. The crater is referred to as 'The Spider', and it occupies a basin that has turned out to be larger than once thought. NASA also has a discussion of the crater. The Messenger craft began taking the up-close photos earlier this month. From the Post: "Scientists were also surprised by evidence of ancient volcanoes on many parts of the planet's surface and how different it looks compared with the moon, which is about the same size. Unlike the moon, Mercury has huge cliffs, as well as formations snaking hundreds of miles that indicate patterns of fault activity from Mercury's earliest days, more than 4 billion years ago."

Comments

It's Just amazing!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

When I think about how far we have come, I am truly amazed. These pictures are from a flyby too! Imagine what we will get when this thing sits in orbit!

Faults from extreme tides, etc

[192939495969798999]

I thought the faults and crustal weirdness on Mercury was from the Sun's insane gravity warping and distorting the planet as it rotates and revolves around the sun (also - the super-hot temperature causes expansion on the hot side, compression on the cool side).

Looks less like spider

[jsheedy]

More like sperm.