Meet the new ostensibly "inexplicable" space photo

540939main_messenter_orbit_image20110428_1_full_full.jpg

Face on Mars, meet the X on Mercury. Coming soon to Coast-to-Coast AM, this photo was taken by NASA's Messenger probe. NASA says the X is the result of two separate meteor strikes whose craters are outside the area that can be seen in this photo. When each meteor hit the Mercurian (?) surface, the force of impact threw off material that left behind its own, smaller, craters when it hit the ground. What you're seeing here isn't really an X, but two unrelated, intersecting lines of secondary crater chains.

Or, at least, that's what They want you to believe.