Hemingway is a

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

on Mercury. It has a patch of very dark material located near its center. The dark color is likely due to rocks that have a different mineralogical composition from that of the surrounding surface. The crater's name was adopted by the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

(IAU) in 2009. It is named for the American author

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

. The small crater Makeba is southeast of Hemingway.

Dark interior crater

The dark impact crater near the center of Hemingway is truly black, and due to its superposition over the other structures in the crater, it is a young feature. The dark material is probably abundant in the subsurface of the crater and is being exposed by

mass wasting Mass wasting, also known as mass movement, is a general term for the movement of rock (geology), rock or soil down slopes under the force of gravity. It differs from other processes of erosion in that the debris transported by mass wasting is no ...

processes and the formation of hollows.Xiao, Z., Xu, R., Wang, Y., Chang, Y., Xu, R., & Cui, J. (2021). Recent dark pyroclastic deposits on Mercury. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL092532
doi.org/10.1029/2021GL092532
/ref> Hemingway crater MESSENGER WAC IGF to RGB.jpg, Approximate color view Hemingway dark interior crater EN0251024644M.jpg, Oblique view facing east with the dark interior crater near center, showing that the dark crater is adjacent to a complex depression Hemingway dark interior crater EN1067602172M.jpg, Oblique view facing west with the dark interior crater near center

References

Impact craters on Mercury {{Mercury-planet-stub