Facts about Mercury's Heavily Cratered Surface
- 07
Ridges called scarps crisscross Mercury's cratered terrain, with some reaching heights of 1 kilometer and lengths exceeding 1,000 kilometers, formed by planetary cooling and contraction over billions of years.
- 06
Secondary craters formed by ejecta from primary impacts blanket Mercury's surface in chains and clusters extending thousands of kilometers from major collision sites.
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Impact basins larger than 250 kilometers across cover roughly 15 percent of Mercury's surface, with the largest concentration in the heavily cratered southern hemisphere.
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Ancient heavily cratered terrain on Mercury's surface dates back 4.1 billion years, making it among the oldest planetary crust in the inner solar system.
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Mercury's heavily cratered surface displays rays of bright ejecta material extending hundreds of kilometers from impact craters, created by relatively recent collisions within the past billion years.
- 02
Intercrater plains covering approximately 27 percent of Mercury's heavily cratered surface consist of smooth volcanic material erupted between 3.8 and 3.2 billion years ago.
- 01
The Caloris Basin, Mercury's largest impact crater at 1,550 kilometers wide, formed approximately 3.8 billion years ago during the Late Heavy Bombardment.