Glinka (crater)

Glinka

Photo from MESSENGER's first flyby in January 2008 with Glinka at bottom center
Feature type	Impact crater
Location	Beethoven quadrangle, Mercury
Coordinates	14°50′N112°33′W / 14.83°N 112.55°W / 14.83; -112.55
Diameter	89 km (55 mi)
Eponym	Mikhail Glinka

Glinka is a pit-floored crater on Mercury, which was discovered in 1974 by Mariner 10 spacecraft. ^[1] It was named by the IAU in 2008, after Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. ^[2]

Its floor is covered by the smooth plain material and displays a kidney-shaped collapse feature, which is also called a central pit. The size of the pit, which was first noticed in MESSENGER images obtained in January 2008, is 20 × 8.5 km. ^[1] It is surrounded by a bright pyroclastic deposit. 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 calderas. ^{[1] [3]}

• 
  Glinka crater
• 
  Closeup of the central pit

References

1. Gillis-Davis, Jeffrey J.; Blewett, David T.; Gaskell, Robert W.; Denevi, Brett W.; Robinson, Mark S.; Strom, Robert G.; Solomon, Sean C.; Sprague, Ann L. (2009). "Pit-floor craters on Mercury: Evidence of near-surface igneous activity". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 285 (3–4): 243–250. Bibcode:2009E&PSL.285..243G. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.05.023.
2. "Glinka". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. IAU/NASA/USGS. Archived from the original on 28 September 2022. Retrieved 25 September 2022.
3. David Pegg, David Rothery, M.R. Balme, Susan Conway, 2021. Explosive vent sites on Mercury: Commonplace multiple eruptions and their implications. Icarus 365:114510. doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114510