Publication Date:
2019
Description:
Abstract
The MESSENGER mission showed the surface of Mercury with an accuracy never reached before (see Table 1). The morphological and spectral analyses performed thanks to the data collected between 2008 and 2015 revealed that the mercurian surface differs from the surface of the Moon, although they look like visually very similar. The surface of Mercury is characterized by a high morphological and spectral variability, suggesting that its stratigraphy is also heterogeneous. Here, we focused on the Shakespeare (H‐03) quadrangle, which is located in the northern hemisphere of Mercury. We produced an 8‐color cube of this quadrangle at 450 m/pixel spatial resolution and with a complete coverage. Various selected color maps based on this 8‐color cube were used to analyse the spectral properties of this region to define its compositional variability and identify some clear units constrained by relevant spectral parameters: e.g. we identified a higher concentration of Low Reflectance Material around three main craters of Shakespeare (Degas, Akutagawa and Sholem Aleichem) and in the area to the south of Sobkou Planitia delimited by 24.4°N to 28.4°N and ‐140°W to ‐125°W. Moreover, we selected some regions of interest, which can be proposed as particularly interesting targets for the VIHI (Visual and Infrared Hyper‐spectral Imager) and MERTIS (Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) instruments onboard the BepiColombo spacecraft. This work can help for the geological analysis of this quadrangle, by integrating information that are usually not derived with a single morphostratigraphic analysis.
Print ISSN:
2169-9097
Electronic ISSN:
2169-9100
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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