Highly Resolved Topography and Illumination at Mercury's South Pole from MESSENGER MDIS NAC ...

• Main Authors: Bertone, Stefano, Mazarico, Erwan, Barker, Michael K., Siegler, Matthew A., Martinez-Camacho, Jose M., Hamill, Colin D., Glantzberg, Allison K., Chabot, Nancy L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: IOP 2023
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2qs5m-ddb7; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/26930

Mercury’s south polar region is of particular interest since Arecibo radar measurements show many highreflectance regions consistent with ice deposits. However, current elevation information in Mercury’s southern hemisphere is not sufficient to perform detailed modeling of the illumination and thermal conditions at these radarbright locations and to constrain properties of the volatiles potentially residing there. In this work, we leverage previously existing elevation maps of Mercury’s surface from stereo-photogrammetry at 665 m pix⁻¹ , Mercury Dual Imaging System Narrow Angle Camera images, and Shape-from-Shading tools from the Ames Stereo Pipeline, to provide the first high-resolution topographic maps of the south pole with a resolution of 250 m pix⁻¹ poleward of 75°S. We show that the increased resolution and level of detail provided by our new elevation model allow for a more realistic recovery of illumination conditions in Mercury’s south polar region, thus opening the way to future thermal analyses ...