This is a list of the

albedo feature 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 usually only) features to b ...

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, through the mechanism of

tidal locking Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting 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 a tidally locked b ...

. 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 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 space probe launched by NASA on 3 November 1973, to fly by the planets Mercury and Venus. It was the first spacecraft to perform flybys of multiple planets. ''Mariner 10'' was launched approximately ...

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

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

, and often allude to myths about

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...

, 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:List Of Albedo Features On Mercury * Mercury (planet)-related lists