• An image of the many lava flooded craters on Mercury's surface.
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    The mosaic, which shows the western limb of the planet with north to the right, was assembled from individual NAC images acquired as the MESSENGER spacecraft approached the planet during the second Mercury flyby. Visible in the mosaic are many lava-flooded craters and large expanses of smooth volcanic plains, which appear similar in texture to volcanically emplaced mare deposits on the Moon.

  • An image of the many lava flooded craters on Mercury's surface.

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NASA-PIA11773

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NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

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