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Fresh rayed crater on Mercury This is the 98th of 99 images in a mosaic of Mercury's northern hemisphere captured by MESSENGER as it receded from its first flyby of the planet, on January 14, 2008 at 19:41 UTC. The sharp edges and bright rays of the crater in the upper left of the image indicate that it formed much later in Mercury's history than most of the other features visible in this image. Sunlight is coming in from high over Mercury in this particular view, so topographic features are not very obvious; instead, brightness and darkness variations across the surface result from local differences in color, composition, and/or texture. The image is about 370 kilometers across. NASA / JHUAPL / CIW