What is that strange material on Mercury?

darkmercury_messenger_big

When flying by Mercury last October, the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft imaged much of the solar system’s innermost planet in unprecedented detail. As common in science, new data bring new mysteries. Pictured above on the lower right, a large crater — about 100 kilometers across — has unusual dark material of unknown composition near its center. The material’s darkness does not appear to be caused by shadows, as the Sun was near zenith when the image was taken. One origin hypothesis is that the dark material was uncovered from beneath Mercury’s surface during the impact that created the surrounding crater. If so, the composition of the dark mound might be similar to the composition of some mysterious dark rings also recently discovered on Mercury. Alternatively, the dark material could be related to an unusual composition of the impacting rock. MESSENGER will buzz past Mercury again later this year before entering orbit in 2011.

Yes I know, a wall of words. But, damn, this is interesting!
APOD



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    RSIxidor

    Its a bunch of flying black monoliths that make loud music.

    Puulaahi

    The words are BLINDING!

    owlbeback

    “My God, it’s full of stars!”

    Vrik

    Maggie Robbins?

    Sticky

    IT’S A TRAP!

    HoChunk

    OMG XENU

    Moe

    Its a hole.. how is that so hard for nasa? a flippin hole. probably space worms. those bastards do it everytime, with there pompus austrailian accents and all..

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