Berkel (crater)
Encyclopedia
Berkel is a crater on Mercury
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...

. The crater contains dark material in its center and in a ring immediately surrounding it. Moreover, Berkel is surrounded by a blanket of bright ejecta
Ejecta
Ejecta can mean:*In volcanology, particles that came out of a volcanic vent, traveled through the air or under water, and fell back on the ground surface or on the ocean floor...

 and a system of bright ray
Ray system
A ray system comprises radial streaks of fine ejecta thrown out during the formation of an impact crater, looking a bit like many thin spokes coming from the hub of a wheel. The rays can extend for lengths up to several times the diameter of their originating crater, and are often accompanied by...

s. Other craters on Mercury’s surface, such as Basho
Basho (crater)
Basho is a crater on Mercury. Though Basho crater is only about in diameter, its bright rays make it an easily identified feature on Mercury's surface. In addition to the long bright rays, photographs from Mariner 10 showed an intriguing dark halo of material around the crater....

, also exhibit both bright rays and dark halos. In contrast, two neighboring craters have bright rays but lack dark halos.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK