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OrbitStudio / Mercury landmarks / Prokofiev Crater

Prokofiev Crater

The largest crater in Mercury's north polar region to hold radar-bright material, the ice that sits in the parts of its floor the Sun never reaches. Close to the pole the models use a sharper laser-altimeter map, so Prokofiev is one of the crispest prints on the planet.

Diameter112 km
Coordinates85.77° N, 62.92° E
TypeImpact crater with permanently shadowed parts
Notable forWater ice on its surface in permanent shadow
Named afterSergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (1891–1953); named in 2012
Elevation sourceNASA Goddard's north polar map of Mercury, from MESSENGER's laser altimeter, made at 250 meters per pixel and blended into the 665-meter model grid

Diameter and name from the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature; the ice from NASA, Johns Hopkins APL and Barker et al. (2022); the elevation map is Mercury North Polar Topography (E. Mazarico, NASA GSFC). Coordinates are the center point OrbitStudio uses for this destination.

Where is Prokofiev on Mercury?

Prokofiev is centered at 85.77° north, 62.92° east, a little over four degrees from Mercury's north pole. The gazetteer, which counts Mercury's longitudes westward, puts it at 297.08° west. The International Astronomical Union named it after the Russian composer in August 2012.

Is there really ice in Prokofiev?

Yes. Craters near both of Mercury's poles return bright radar echoes, and in 2012 MESSENGER gave compelling support for the long-held idea that Mercury holds water ice in its permanently shadowed polar craters. Prokofiev is the largest crater in the north polar region to host that radar-bright material, and in 2014 the MESSENGER team took the first optical images of the ice there: within its permanently shadowed regions, water ice is exposed on the surface. A study of Prokofiev by Barker et al. (2022) puts an upper limit of 26 meters on the thickness of the deposit.

What does Prokofiev look like as a 3D print?

A deep, sharp crater. Framed so that about 130 kilometers of ground fill a model 200 millimeters across, the roughly 5 kilometers of relief in that view come out at about 8 millimeters, enough to read at true scale; 2x makes it dramatic.

Near the pole the models switch from the global elevation model to NASA Goddard's map made from MESSENGER's laser altimeter, at 250 meters per pixel. In our test builds the rim, the hills in the middle of the floor and the small craters around it all come through. The ice itself does not: it is at most a few tens of meters thick, far below what a print 200 millimeters across can show.

Print Prokofiev in OrbitStudio Watch how it works · 1:12

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.

Other landmarks

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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.