Lennon-Picasso Basin

The Lennon-Picasso Basin is an ancient (Pre-Tolstojan) impact basin on Mercury, discovered from topographic mapping of the surface by the MESSENGER spacecraft. It is approximately 1450 km in diameter and spans the region between Picasso crater on the north rim to Lennon crater on the south rim, and the crater Holst is near the center. The basin is heavily eroded by subsequent impacts and is not obvious on the surface. A topographic low is present near the center, and scarps representing a remnant of the eastern basin rim are intact. The scarps include the highest point on the planet.[1]

Topographic map of the Lennon-Picasso Basin

References

Denevi, B. W., Ernst, C. M., Prockter, L. M., and Robinson, M. S., 2018. The Geologic History of Mercury. In Mercury: The View After MESSENGER edited by Sean C. Solomon, Larry R. Nittler, and Brian J. Anderson. Cambridge Planetary Science. Chapter 6.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] Denevi, B. W., Ernst, C. M., Prockter, L. M., and Robinson, M. S., 2018. The Geologic History of Mercury. In Mercury: The View After MESSENGER edited by Sean C. Solomon, Larry R. Nittler, and Brian J. Anderson. Cambridge Planetary Science. Chapter 6.