New Names for Mercury features Options

[edstrick]

I've uploaded a segment extracted from my enhancement of the departure hemisphere color mosaic

Eminescu is a "middle aged" (sort of equivalent to Eartosthenian, on the Moon) crater with no particularly distinctive color/albedo patterns OTHER than the features surrounding the central peak-ring.

The rim and outer floor of Eminescu are a little "yellower" in the enhancement than most of the surrounding cratered terrain, though the "blue" splattering from the young ray crater to the east, outside the high-rez frame, is an overlay of somewhat masking color-noise. In the general vicinity, crater floor and intercrater plains seem "yellower" than the old crater rims and rugged intercrater terrain, giving the plains a generally neutral color in this enhancement. To the northeast, outside the high-rez frame, some crater walls and patches on the plains have an interesting "pink" color that may be distinctive material (this area was missed by the ejecta). A large degraded crater almost as big as Eminescu, just south of the bright "blue" ray crater, seems to have an unusual "dark blue" central peak, but higher resolution data would be needed to confirm this is real. Another crater in the south part of the enhanced low-rez image has a "pink" central peak, again needing confirmation as a real feature. Patches of a "dark purple-blue" terrain appear near the south east corner of the low-rez frame and extend further south out of the cropped frame and appear to be a patchy regional unit in the rugged highlands there.

But in general, beside near-terminator noise in the color data, the area around Eminescu (within about 3 crater diameters of it's rim) is largely devoid of prominant color variations.

This makes the intense "blue" color of the bright materal in and around the central peaks extremely distinctive. The data suggests also that the dark patches on the crater floor that immediately surround the bright "blue" areas are also strongly "blue" colored. Higher resolution would help confirm this.

A few other craters share this feature: most prominant is the impact basin with a prominent central ring that's to the north of Eminescu. Some of the impact craters within Caloris also have bright, bluish floors and maybe central peaks. One fairly young crater with weak ejecta rays well to the south of Eminescu also has a somewhat bright and blue central peak area. But overall, these features are very uncommon.

"Curiouser and curiouser" said Alice"

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[scalbers]

Here's a map with feature names, some of the new and some of the old ones, using a size threshold of 125km.



Full resolution: http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/features/c...zero_center.png

Steve

[CAP-Team]

Steve, besides adding feature names to your maps, I was wondering if you are working on any updates?

[Phil Stooke]

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...mp;image_id=681

This is the most up to date map from MESSENGER. An updated version might be available in a week with the new PDS release.

Phil

[scalbers]

CAP-Team, for Mercury a simple idea might be to use the latest MESSENGER map as a background and overlay the global images I've been using that have the lower phase angle? Working directly with 100s of high-resolution images would be a large task for me. Otherwise we can talk about ideas for updating particular maps. Sometimes I can benefit from a little coaching.

For the time being here are the features put on top of the MESSENGER map Phil linked to:



Higher Resolution (4K): http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/features/c...zero_center.png

Steve

[MarcF]

Some changes in Mercury nomenclature and new names. Previous Valles became Catenae and valleys (formed due to mechanical and thermal erosion of Mercury's surface by hot, low-viscosity, quickly-flowing lavas) have been named according to the theme of "abandoned cities (and towns and settlements) of antiquity" .
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/scienc...p;image_id=1161
Regards,
Marc

[MahFL]

Some changes in Mercury nomenclature and new names. ...]
Regards,
Marc

Unfortuneatly clicking on the "next" for the third image results in an error.