Cookie Monster Crater Spotted On Mercury

A "Cookie Monster" crater was spotted recently by NASA on Mercury's surface.

Cookie Monster crater on Mercury (Photo: NASA)

On Friday, the space agency posted on its Flickr page a photo of the crater, which resembles the face of the well-loved "Sesame Street" character, and asked, "Anyone Else Think This Looks Like the Cookie Monster?"

On its Tumblr page, "Sesame Street" responded to NASA's question saying, "We think so. Now that we think about it, maybe Mercury is Cookie Monster, or his distant cousin maybe (?), and it’s circling the Sun in hopes of om nom noming some space cookies or something."

But NASA gave an explanation how the image was formed.

"But the superposition of younger craters on older craters (in this case two smaller craters upon the rim of an older crater) can result in landforms that appear to resemble more familiar shapes to human eyes," it wrote. "More generally, the Law of Superposition allows scientists to determine which surface features pre- and postdate others, leading to a better understanding of the geological history of different regions of Mercury's surface."

The photo was taken using NASA's Messenger spacecraft, the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury. Launched in 2004, the $446 million mission was originally intended to spend about a year mapping Mercury, but was granted a one-year extension. During the one-year primary mission, Messenger acquired 88,746 images and extensive other data sets. Another 80,000 photos are being planned to be shot during its extension to support its science goals.