To Ngoc Van (crater)
Encyclopedia
To Ngoc Van is a pit-floored crater on Mercury
, which was discovered in January 2008 during the first flyby of the planet by MESSENGER
spacecraft. Its floor displays an irregularly shaped collapse feature, which is called a central pit. The size of the pit is . Such a feature may have resulted from collapse of a magma chamber
underlying the central part of the crater. The collapse feature is an analog of Earth's volcanic caldera
s.
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
, which was discovered in January 2008 during the first flyby of the planet by MESSENGER
MESSENGER
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging space probe is a robotic NASA spacecraft in orbit around the planet Mercury. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study the chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field of Mercury...
spacecraft. Its floor displays an irregularly shaped collapse feature, which is called a central pit. The size of the pit is . Such a feature may have resulted from collapse of a magma chamber
Magma chamber
A magma chamber is a large underground pool of molten rock found beneath the surface of the Earth. The molten rock in such a chamber is under great pressure, and given enough time, that pressure can gradually fracture the rock around it creating outlets for the magma...
underlying the central part of the crater. The collapse feature is an analog of Earth's volcanic caldera
Caldera
A caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption, such as the one at Yellowstone National Park in the US. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters...
s.