News this week is reverberating around the internet, while orbiting Mercury the Messenger space probe has captured images of something highly unusual, what appears to be a pitch black void, a doorway to the underworld of Mercury.

Eagle eyed NASA enthusiast Scott C Warring (of UFO Sightings Daily) discovered the anomaly within the publicly available data; this particular image is part of the MDIS global mosaic basemap data. The doorway is located adjacent to the Victoria Rupes Cliffs and includes un-naturally straight edges and near perfect corners. Using the adjacent craters for scale the doorway is 5.6km / 3.4 mile wide, if this is the garage door how big is the car?

Taking a closer look at the Mercury void image there appears to be an unusual distortion around the edges, there is no shadow to suggest shape or dimension. Closer inspection shows the completely black shape is a lack of anything more than it is an object.

If a technological civilization were to build a base on Mercury it would be under ground or covered with a form of protective shield, Mercury is an extremely harsh environment, temperatures reach over 700 degrees (first Fahrenheit  then Celcius) on the sunny side and 200 below on the dark side. Mercury is so close to the Sun that large solar flares can actually reach out and touch Mercury’s surface with their fiery hand.

The Messenger probe has been patiently orbiting and recording its observations for the last 18 months, gathering information about the innermost planet on a global scale. Having completed its primary data collection mission in March Messenger is now on an extended mission, observing the solar maximum’s effects of the little planet. Potentially a suicide mission of no return.

As humanities high-tech emissaries in space, our eyes and ears,, gather more information there are bound to be mysteries in the data, anomalies that defy explanation through our current understanding of the laws of the universe. An understanding that improves with each mystery solved and new detailed learned. With 100,000 images collected on Messengers primary mission it is now up to us to discover the mysteries held within.

Reference: UFO Sightings Daily
Reference: Alamongordo
Reference: NASA