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Chekhov's Tectonics
We last saw the 200-km-diameter Chekhov impact basin during a solar storm at Mercury. In this image, with north to the bottom, the inner portion of this peak-ring basin is visible — as are the tectonic landforms to which it plays host. These structures appear to be lobate scarps, formed when one block of crust thrusts up and over another, in response to the global contraction of Mercury as its core cooled and solidified.
Date acquired: August 28, 2012
Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington