Mercury: Lord of the (peak) Rings (annotated)

This image of a rugged part of Mercury’s surface was captured by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 4 September 2024 as the spacecraft sped by for its fourth of six gravity assist manoeuvres at the planet. 

It was captured at 23:57 CEST by the Mercury Transfer Module’s monitoring camera 2 (M-CAM 2), just three minutes after closest approach, when the spacecraft was only about 885 km from the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s closest approach of 165 km took place at 23:48 CEST. 

The image reveals two ‘peak ring basins’, so-called due to their inner ring of peaks on an otherwise flattish floor. Vivaldi, named after the famous Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) measures 210 km across. Stoddart, newly named because it was deemed interesting for BepiColombo scientists in the future, measures 155 km across. 

Also in the image are the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s medium gain antenna (top centre) and magnetometer boom (right). 

North is to the lower left 

Read more about BepiColombo's fourth Mercury flyby

Click here for an unannotated version of this image

[Image description: Planet Mercury in the background with its grey, cratered, pock-marked surface. Dark yellow ellipses indicate craters Vivaldi and Stoddart. In the foreground are some spacecraft parts.]