Radar Imaging of Mercury's North and South Poles at 3.5 cm Wavelength

The Goldstone Solar System Radar has been used to image the north and south poles of Mercury during the inferior conjunctions of February 2001 and June 2001. The sub-Earth latitude was -10.7 degrees in February during observations of the southern hemisphere, and +8.4 degrees in June during observations of the northern hemisphere. These excellent viewing angles provided an opportunity to resolve the radar bright material in polar craters at 6 km range resolution. Fine-scale (1.5 km) resolution images of the northern craters have previously been obtained at 13 cm wavelengths during the July 1999 inferior conjunction. However, due to geometric constraints, the Arecibo radar cannot observe the southern polar region of Mercury until 2004. Our new Goldstone 6 km data are a factor of two higher resolution than Arecibo data collected in March 1992 at 15 km range resolution, and will remain the most highly resolved images of the south polar region for the next few years. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.