NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ. APL, Arizona State Univ., CIW

This is a photo created using images and laser altimetry data from the Messenger (MESSENGER) spacecraft, which was launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and operated around Mercury from 2011 to 2015. The massive 48 km wide crater Janacek is located at the top left edge. The terrain elevation is represented in red, indicating that the areas depicted in red are about 3 km higher than those in blue. The final orbit of the Messenger spacecraft is expected to have ended near the center of this photo. The spacecraft collided with the surface at a speed of 4 km/s, creating a new crater approximately 16 m in diameter. Launched in 2004, this spacecraft reached Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system, in 2011, completing more than 4,000 orbits before retiring in 2015.