[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

The Narrow Angle Camera of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on the MESSENGER spacecraft obtained high-resolution images of the floor of the Caloris basin on January 14, 2008. Near the center of the basin, an area unseen by Mariner 10, this remarkable feature, nicknamed "the spider" by the science team, was revealed. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

[rfp1234]

[Hot Tabasco]

Looks like an “outie” bellybutton to me. Are they sure one of their fat geeks isn’t having fun with the copy machine????

[shaft29]

Whoa! Look in the right top corner and you can see a Walmart.

[Clarinet_King]

Really astounding pic. I’ve always loved looking at things like this. Do you have the source with anymore of these photos?

[Boiler Plate]

I thought the spiders were from Mars.

[Hoffer Rand]

Big deal. When they find the giant foot that mashed it, then they’ll have something to brag about.

[henbane]

[pillut48]

Looks like conception!!

[mewzilla]

Galactus hocked a loogie?

[blam]

One of your circles, lol?

[Bender2]

Reminds me... of those lines

On the Plains... of Nazca in Peru

[Jabba the Nutt]

It looks like two things to me. One is what a dragon fly looks like after it hits the windshield at about 60mph. Or it looks like a giant sperm. I’m not explaining it, I’m just saying what it looks like.

[zot]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting. Whatever that was, it went SPLAT !

[rfp1234]

A giant fungus.

[icwhatudo]

[Vince Ferrer]

...appears to be an impact crater surrounded by more than 50 cracks in the surface radiating from its center.

The crater does not look like it is part of the cause of the lines, however. It looks like a later accidental addition. This looks like ancient lava tubes from a worn away lava dome, or some such volcanic activity coming up from the crust, not from an impact. The dark spot is probably an ancient volcano.

Another theory, which would be really interesting and far out there, is that the lines were caused by an electrical discharge between Mercury and another body.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from January.

The photos, released today, include one of a feature the scientists informally call "the spider," which appears to be an impact crater surrounded by more than 50 cracks in the surface radiating from its center.

Planet Mercury is shrinking, volcanic and Spacecraft Beams Home New Images of Mercury (Nasa's Messenger) are related, and (Humor) New NASA Photo Reveals Mercury Space Pirate is almost related.

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[Swordmaker]

It is not truly unique. Look at these Martian Spiders:

It actually also compares quite well with Tycho Crater on the Moon which is, under the electric universe theory, not an impact crater but an electric discharge "lightning" pimple—a huge one, but a lightning pimple none-the-less— with the striations approaching it the remnants of the underground paths of the amassing electrons as they rush to join the massive plasma arc leaving the moon.

Tycho Crater is raised above the surrounding terrain, and stria do not line up with point of impact.
Sharing another feature with the Mercurian Spider and laboratory created "Lightning Pimples", Tycho and the spider have a raised center peak.

Note the striations, that have always been explained as ejecta paths, do NOT point directly toward (or away from) the center of "impact." They cannot be ejecta paths which would follow a ballistic path directly away from the point of impact. Note also that the stria on the Mercury Spider also do not point directly away from the point of impact.

On the left: An electrical discharge to a negatively charged surface, recorded on a photographic plate. On the right: A Martian “spider.”