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OrbitStudio / Mercury landmarks

3D print Mercury

Pick any region of Mercury, from pole to pole, and OrbitStudio turns the elevation model made from NASA's MESSENGER mission into a 3D-printable jigsaw puzzle or ornament. Thirty-six landmarks are built in, from Rachmaninoff basin and the great scarps to the craters at the north pole that hold water ice, and any other region can be selected by hand.

Elevation sourceThe USGS global elevation model of Mercury, made from NASA MESSENGER images
Toward the polesSharper polar maps, made at 250 meters per pixel and blended in: NASA Goddard's from MESSENGER's laser altimeter in the north, Bertone et al.'s in the south
Source data resolution665 meters per pixel; large regions use a coarser version
CoverageThe whole planet, pole to pole
Smallest regionAbout 102 km across
FilesSTL, and pre-colored 3MF files for Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer
Model typesSnap-together jigsaw puzzle or solid ornament
Built-in landmarks36, in seven groups

The coordinates below are the center point OrbitStudio uses for each feature, from the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The gazetteer counts Mercury's longitudes in degrees west; they are given here in degrees east and west, as on the Moon and Mars.

A round 3D-printed Mercury model in light grey on a black frame lettered MERCURY: impact craters with raised rims and central peaks, and the print's layers tracing the terrain like contour lines
A round Mercury model, printed in light grey on a black frame: the craters keep their rims and central peaks, and the layers trace the ground like contour lines.

How do you turn a region of Mercury into an STL?

Open the generator, switch it to Mercury, pick a landmark from the list or drag the selection box over any other region, and choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament in a circle, square or hexagon. OrbitStudio builds the model from the elevation data and shows it in 3D before you download anything, with the terrain and the frame already separated and colored.

Generating a model and turning it around in 3D is free and needs no account. A free account adds puzzle slicing, custom frame text and a library of three models. Downloading the STL and pre-colored 3MF files uses one credit from a pass.

How much relief does Mercury have?

Nearly 10 kilometers from the lowest point to the highest in the first global elevation model of Mercury, which the USGS built from MESSENGER's images. The floor of Rachmaninoff basin lies 5,380 meters below Mercury's average elevation, and the highest point, in some of the planet's oldest terrain just south of the equator, stands about 4,480 meters above it. Long cliffs called lobate scarps, such as Discovery Rupes, cross the surface: they rose as the planet's interior cooled and shrank, by as much as 7 kilometers in radius by one estimate.

Which regions of Mercury print best?

The big basins and the scarps. Framed so that about 350 km of ground fill a model 200 mm across, Rachmaninoff comes out with about 3.5 mm of relief at 1x, so 2x to 3x suits it. Discovery Rupes, a cliff up to about a kilometer high, is a step of under half a millimeter at 1x on a model that takes in 470 km, and wants 3x to 5x before it reads as one. Caloris, about 1,500 km across and, in NASA's words, one of the largest impact basins in the Solar System, straddles the 180° meridian, where a selection has to stop, so the generator takes it in parts: its plains, its fossae and the craters around it.

The polar craters print sharpest, because toward each pole the models switch to sharper maps made at 250 meters per pixel: framed so that about 130 km fill the model, Prokofiev, 112 km across near the north pole, comes out with about 8 mm of relief at 1x. Away from the poles the elevation model is softer than its 665-meter grid suggests; in our tests, craters under about 50 km across print soft and blocky, which is why a region on Mercury is at least about 102 km across. Kuiper, at 62 km, spans more than half of a model that size.

A model that reaches south of 75° S is built partly from Bertone et al.'s south polar map, which is licensed CC BY 4.0. If you share or sell one, credit it: the download dialog shows the line to use and the files include it, as section 08 of the terms explains.

Which Mercury landmarks are built in?

Thirty-six, in seven groups: five in and around the Caloris basin; eight impact basins; ten craters; six scarps; two volcanic plains and vents; three craters at the north pole and two at the south pole. Each one below opens the generator on Mercury, already flown to it.

Caloris Basin

Agwo Facula22.4° N, 146.3° E · Open in the generator
Atget Crater25.57° N, 166.38° E · Open in the generator
Caloris Planitia31.65° N, 161.98° E · Open in the generator
Kertesz Crater27.37° N, 146.08° E · Open in the generator
Pantheon Fossae30.19° N, 162.83° E · Open in the generator

Impact Basins

Beethoven Basin20.86° S, 124.21° W · Open in the generator
Mozart Basin7.75° N, 169.41° E · Open in the generator
Rachmaninoff Basin27.66° N, 57.37° E · Open in the generator
Raditladi Basin27.15° N, 119.06° E · Open in the generator
Rembrandt Basin32.89° S, 87.87° E · Open in the generator
Shakespeare Basin48.1° N, 152.25° W · Open in the generator
Tolstoj Basin16.23° S, 164.64° W · Open in the generator
Vivaldi Basin13.76° N, 85.92° W · Open in the generator

Craters

Abedin Crater61.73° N, 10.66° W · Open in the generator
Basho Crater32.39° S, 170.45° W · Open in the generator
Debussy Crater33.95° S, 12.54° E · Open in the generator
Degas Crater37.08° N, 127.34° W · Open in the generator
Eminescu Crater10.66° N, 114.21° E · Open in the generator
Hokusai Crater57.84° N, 16.65° E · Open in the generator
Kuiper Crater11.34° S, 31.32° W · Open in the generator
Praxiteles Crater27.11° N, 60.28° W · Open in the generator
Rudaki Crater3.97° S, 51.76° W · Open in the generator
Tyagaraja Crater3.89° N, 148.9° W · Open in the generator

Scarps

Beagle Rupes3.22° S, 100.76° E · Open in the generator
Carnegie Rupes58.52° N, 53.25° W · Open in the generator
Discovery Rupes54.7° S, 37.24° W · Open in the generator
Enterprise Rupes36.54° S, 76.54° E · Open in the generator
Santa Maria Rupes5.81° N, 20.0° W · Open in the generator
Victoria Rupes52.71° N, 34.16° W · Open in the generator

Volcanic Plains and Vents

Borealis Planitia67.3° N, 32.6° E · Open in the generator
Nathair Facula36.0° N, 64.5° E · Open in the generator

North Pole

Fuller Crater82.63° N, 42.65° W · Open in the generator
Kandinsky Crater87.89° N, 78.78° E · Open in the generator
Prokofiev Crater85.77° N, 62.92° E · Open in the generator

South Pole

Bernini Crater80.32° S, 140.97° W · Open in the generator
Chao Meng-Fu Crater88.42° S, 156.36° W · Open in the generator
Start with Rachmaninoff About Rachmaninoff

What is OrbitStudio?

OrbitStudio turns real elevation data into 3D-printable models. You pick a region of Mercury on a globe or a flat map, choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament, and get ready-to-print files with terrain and borders already separated and colored. No CAD, no mesh repair. The heights come from the USGS global elevation model of Mercury, made from NASA MESSENGER images at 665 meters per pixel, with sharper polar maps blended in toward the poles.

Trying it is free and needs no account: pick a region, generate it and turn it around in 3D. Downloading the model — STL files and pre-colored 3MF files for Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer — uses one credit from a pass. The generator covers the Moon and Mars too.

The night sky, too

OrbitStudio Sky, the night-sky tool, turns the sky over any place, on any date from 1900 to 2100, into a 3D-printable star map. Its STL is free.