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Science 4 July 2008:
Vol. 321. no. 5885, pp. 77 - 79
DOI: 10.1126/science.1159086
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Reports

Laser Altimeter Observations from MESSENGER's First Mercury Flyby

Maria T. Zuber,1* David E. Smith,2 Sean C. Solomon,3 Roger J. Phillips,4 Stanton J. Peale,5 James W. Head, III,6 Steven A. Hauck, II,7 Ralph L. McNutt, Jr.,8 Jürgen Oberst,9 Gregory A. Neumann,2 Frank G. Lemoine,2 Xiaoli Sun,2 Olivier Barnouin-Jha,8 John K. Harmon10

A 3200-kilometers-long profile of Mercury by the Mercury Laser Altimeter on the MESSENGER spacecraft spans ~20% of the near-equatorial region of the planet. Topography along the profile is characterized by a 5.2-kilometer dynamic range and 930-meter root-mean-square roughness. At long wavelengths, topography slopes eastward by 0.02°, implying a variation of equatorial shape that is at least partially compensated. Sampled craters on Mercury are shallower than their counterparts on the Moon, at least in part the result of Mercury's higher gravity. Crater floors vary in roughness and slope, implying complex modification over a range of length scales.

1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139–4307, USA.
2 Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
3 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
4 Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.
5 Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
6 Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
7 Department of Geological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
8 Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.
9 Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, D-12489 Germany.
10 National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory, Arecibo 00612, Puerto Rico.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zuber{at}mit.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Return to Mercury: A Global Perspective on MESSENGER's First Mercury Flyby.
S. C. Solomon, R. L. McNutt Jr., T. R. Watters, D. J. Lawrence, W. C. Feldman, J. W. Head, S. M. Krimigis, S. L. Murchie, R. J. Phillips, J. A. Slavin, et al. (2008)
Science 321, 59-62
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)