This is a list of the

albedo feature In planetary geology, an albedo feature is a large area on the surface of a planet (or other Solar System body) which shows a contrast in brightness or darkness (albedo) with adjacent areas. Historically, albedo features were the first (and usu ...

s of the planet Mercury as seen by early telescopic observation. Early telescopic observations of Mercury were based on the assumption that Mercury keeps one of its faces permanently turned toward the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

, through the mechanism of

tidal locking Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical body, astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where ...

. Although this is not true (Mercury rotates three times on its axis for every two revolutions around the Sun), when it is positioned for best viewing from Earth, the amount by which its visible face has rotated from its previous best viewing position is fairly small. A map of MercuryAntoniadi's map of Mercury
/ref> made in the 1910s by astronomer

Eugène Michel Antoniadi Eugène Michel Antoniadi (Greek: Ευγένιος Αντωνιάδης; 1 March 1870 – 10 February 1944) was a Greek-French astronomer. He is known for creating the Antoniadi scale as well as for his observations of the planets, and was a ...

shows the following albedo features, localized by a grid in which 0° longitude is the (assumed) subsolar meridian. No certain connection has been made between these features and the topographic features viewed on Mercury by the

Mariner 10 ''Mariner 10'' was an American Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe launched by NASA on 3 November 1973, to fly by the planets Mercury (planet), Mercury and Venus. It was the first spacecraft to perform flybys of multiple planets. ''Marin ...

spacecraft. Mariner 10, however, imaged less than half of Mercury's surface. The names are drawn from

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, and often allude to myths about

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

, the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Mercury.

List of albedo features on Mercury

The names of albedo features currently used by th
Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
are largely based upon Antoniadi's names, but include several alterations; they also necessarily use a different coordinate grid. The newer regional names are: ''Borea'' () "Northern region"; ''Australia'' () "Southern region"; and ''Tricrena'' (), the name of a mountain near Pheneus in Arcadia. Other changes are: all features named ''Vallis'' and ''Promontorium'' have been renamed ''Solitudo''; ''Solitudo Argiphontae'' has been renamed ''Sinus Argiphontae'' ("bay of Argiphontes"); ''Admeti'' has been changed to ''Admetei'' (in error; there is no mythological figure ''Admeteus''); ''Pleias'' has become ''Pleias Gallia''.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Albedo features on Mercury, List of * Mercury (planet)-related lists