Mercury's Izquierdo: An Impact Basin Newly Named for the Mexican Painter

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington · Download full size image

• Date Acquired: January 14, 2008
  
• Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 108828411
  
• Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
  
• Resolution: 500 meters/pixel (0.31 miles/pixel)
  
• Scale: Izquierdo is 170 kilometers (106 miles) in diameter
  
• Spacecraft Altitude: 19,400 kilometers (12,000 miles)

Of Interest: Located to the east of Beagle Rupes and Sveinsdóttir crater, a modest-sized impact basin on Mercury now bears the name of Izquierdo. It was named in July 2009 in honor of the 20^th-century Mexican painter María Izquierdo. As seen in this NAC image, the floor of Izquierdo is smooth, the result of having been partially filled with volcanic lava. Circular outlines of the rims of “ghost craters” – smaller, older craters that have been largely buried by the lavas that infilled the basin – are visible in a few places on Izquierdo’s floor. The remnants of a buried inner ring are also barely discernable in spots, reminiscent of the image of Munkácsy released last week. There have been more recent impacts into the floor of Izquierdo, resulting in some small, sharply defined craters.

Posted on: 04 Sep, 2009