Overview of the Impact Region

On April 30th, this region of Mercury's surface will have a new crater! Traveling at 3.91 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour), the MESSENGER spacecraft will collide with Mercury's surface, creating a crater estimated to be 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. The large, 400-kilometer-diameter (250-mile-diameter), impact basin Shakespeare occupies the bottom left quarter of this image. Shakespeare is filled with smooth plains material, likely due to extensive lava flooding the basin in the past. As of 24 hours before the impact, the current best estimates predict that the spacecraft will strike a ridge slightly to the northeast of Shakespeare. View this image to see more details of the predicted impact site and time. Instrument: Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) and Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) Latitude Range: 49°-59° N Longitude Range: 204°-217° E Topography: Exaggerated by a factor of 5.5. Colors: Coded by topography. The tallest regions are colored red and are roughly 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) higher than low-lying areas such as the floors of impact craters, colored blue. Scale: The large crater on the left side of the image is Janacek, with a diameter of 48 kilometers (30 miles) http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19444