|
Lunar Dome
A lunar dome is a type of shield volcano that is found on the surface of the Earth's Moon. They are typically formed by highly viscous, possibly silica-rich lava, erupting from localized vents followed by relatively slow cooling. Lunar domes are wide, rounded, circular features with a gentle slope rising in elevation a few hundred meters to the midpoint. They are typically 8–12 km in diameter, but can be up to 20 km across. Some of the domes contain a small craterlet at the peak. Some of the domes have been shown to consist of the same materials as the lunar maria. Thus they could be created by some mechanism that differs from the mare-forming flows. It is thought that these domes are formed from a smaller magma chamber that is closer to the surface than is the case for a mare. This results in a lower pressure, and so the lava flows more slowly. The magma wells up through a crack in the surface, but the flow eventually concentrates through one primary vent. This concen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gambart (crater)
Gambart is a small lunar impact crater on the Mare Insularum, near the central region of the Moon. It is named after French astronomer Jean-Félix Adolphe Gambart. It can be located to the south-southeast of the prominent ray crater Copernicus. In the past, the floor of Gambart has been flooded with lava, leaving a relatively flat surface surrounded by a smooth but somewhat polygon-shaped outer rim. To the southwest of Gambart is an area of hilly terrain deposited from ejecta during the Mare Imbrium impact, known as the Fra Mauro Formation. The smaller Gambart C crater is located to the northeast of Gambart itself. Roughly between Gambart and Gambart C is a lunar dome, a type of shield volcano. The Surveyor 2 probe crashed to the northeast of Gambart C. Satellite craters By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Gambart. Images File:Gambart A crater 4121 h1.jpg, Lunar Orbiter 4 image ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lacus Veris
Lacus Veris (Latin ''vēris'', "Lake of Spring") is a small lunar mare on the Moon. In selenographic coordinates, the mare centered at 16.5° S, 86.1° W and is approximately 396 km long. The mare extends along an irregular 90° arc from east to north that is centered on the Mare Orientale, covering an area of about 12,000 km2. Author Eric Burgess proposed this mare as the location of a future manned lunar base, citing a 1989 study performed at the NASA Johnson Space Center. This small, roughly crescent-shaped mare region lies between the ring-shaped Inner and Outer Rook mountains that form part of the Orientale impact basin. It lies in a topographic lowland about 1 km below the surrounding peaks. Based on data collected during the Lunar Orbiter missions and from Earth-based telescopes, the mare includes some material from the surrounding highlands. The density of crater impacts indicates that this mare is an estimated 3.5 billion years old, and it finished formi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to the Moon. Its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies. Launched on June 18, 2009, in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), as the vanguard of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years. LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration program. The probe has made a 3-D map of the Moon's surface at 100-meter resolution and 98.2% coverage (excluding polar areas in deep shadow), including 0.5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites. The first images f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Orbiter 3
The Lunar Orbiter 3 was a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1967 as part of the Lunar Orbiter program, Lunar Orbiter Program. It was designed primarily to photograph areas of the Moon, lunar surface for confirmation of safe landing sites for the Surveyor program, Surveyor and Apollo program, Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data. Mission Summary The spacecraft was placed in a cislunar trajectory and injected into an elliptical near-equatorial lunar orbit on February 8 at 21:54 UT. The orbit was with an inclination of 20.9 degrees and a period of 3 hours 25 minutes. After four days (25 orbits) of tracking the orbit was changed to . The spacecraft acquired photographic data from February 15 to 23, 1967, and readout occurred through March 2, 1967. The film advance mechanism showed erratic behavior during this period resulting in a decision to begin readout of the frames earlier than planned. The frames were r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mare Imbrium
Mare Imbrium (Latin ''imbrium'', the "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains", "Sea of Tears") is a vast lava plain within the Imbrium Basin on the Moon and is one of the larger craters in the Solar System. The Imbrium Basin formed from the collision of a proto-planet during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Basaltic lava later flooded the giant crater to form the flat volcanic plain seen today. The basin's age has been estimated using uranium–lead dating methods to approximately 3.9 billion years ago, and the diameter of the impactor has been estimated to be 250 ± 25 km. The Moon's maria (plural of mare) have fewer features than other areas of the Moon because molten lava pooled in the craters and formed a relatively smooth surface. Mare Imbrium is not as flat as it was originally thought, because later events have altered its surface. Origin Mare Imbrium formed when a proto-planet from the asteroid belt collided with the moon during the Late Heavy Bombardment. The impact i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messier (crater)
Messier is a relatively young Lunar craters, lunar impact crater located on the Mare Fecunditatis. The crater has a discernible rectangle, oblong shape that is not caused by foreshortening. The longer dimension is oriented in an east–west direction. Just to the west lies Messier A, a similar-sized crater with an oblong, doublet form. The longer dimension of this crater is oriented north–south, at right angles to Messier. This crater also has a curved bulge extending to the west. Messier and Messier A were photographed at high resolution by NASA's Lunar Orbiter 5 spacecraft In August 1967. The Lunar Orbiter V_041 image is archived at the Lunar and Planetary Institute]website The Lunar Orbiter V partial image shown here is derived from the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project effort to reprocess these images from the original tapes. The interiors of Messier and Messier A have a higher albedo than the surrounding Lunar mare, mare. There is also a dark streak in the center of ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinas (crater)
Sinas is a small lunar impact crater that lies in the eastern part of the Moon on the Mare Tranquillitatis. Its diameter is 12 km. It was named after the Greek magnate Simon Sinas. This is an isolated formation that is located very near the midpoint of the lunar mare. Sinas is circular and bowl-shaped, with a small floor at the midpoint. A wrinkle ridge intersects the east edge of the crater, and several lunar domes lie to the north. Nearby craters include Jansen and Carrel to the northwest, Aryabhata to the southeast, and Maskelyne to the south. Views File:Sinas crater as08-13-2346hr.jpg, Oblique view at low sun angle from Apollo 8, and one of the lunar domes is at right File:Sinas crater AS11-42-6317.jpg, Oblique view at low sun angle from Apollo 11 File:Sinas crater AS15-P-9855.jpg, Apollo 15 panoramic camera image, at a high sun angle Satellite craters By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mare Tranquillitatis
Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin ''tranquillitātis'', the Sea of Tranquillity or Sea of Tranquility; see spelling differences) is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. It is the first location on another world to be visited by humans. The mare material within the basin consists of basalt formed in the intermediate to young age group of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The surrounding mountains are thought to be of the Lower Imbrian epoch, but the actual basin is probably Pre-Nectarian. The basin has irregular margins and lacks a defined multiple-ringed structure. The irregular topography in and near this basin results from the intersection of the Tranquillitatis, Nectaris, Crisium, Fecunditatis, and Serenitatis basins with two throughgoing rings of the Procellarum basin. Palus Somni, on the northeastern rim of the mare, is filled with the basalt that spilled over from Tranquillitatis. This mare has a slight bluish tint relative to the rest of the Moon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donna (crater)
Donna is a tiny lunar crater on the near side of the Moon. Its name is an Italian female given name, and does not refer to a specific person. It is located in the eastern half of the Mare Tranquillitatis, at the summit of the lunar dome Omega (ω) Cauchy. As such domes are thought to be volcanic in nature, it appears likely that this crater was created by an eruption. This is in contrast to most lunar craters, which are now believed to be created by impacts. This crater is sufficiently small that it requires a large telescope to resolve. To the north of this crater is a fault line in the lunar mare designated Rupes Cauchy. It is named after the crater Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He w ..., which lies farther to the north. To the west-northwest of Donna is a seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mons Esam
Mons Esam is a small, isolated mountain in the northern part of the Mare Tranquillitatis. It is located to the southeast of the crater Vitruvius and to the west-northwest of Lyell. To the northeast of this ridge is the bay called Sinus Amoris. The selenographic coordinate of this feature is 14.6° N, 35.7° E, and it has a maximum diameter at the base of 8 km. The name of this feature is an Arabic masculine name ( ar, links=no, عصام, eisam), and it was not chosen to represent a specific individual. This peak is a lunar cone that was formed through tectonic processes, which rises roughly 400 meters above the surrounding plains. A pair of tiny craters just to the south of Mons Esam have been assigned names by the IAU. These are listed in the table below. The craters are at the tops of two lunar dome A lunar dome is a type of shield volcano that is found on the surface of the Earth's Moon. They are typically formed by highly viscous, possibly silica-rich lava, eruptin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arago (lunar Crater)
Arago is a lunar impact crater located in the western part of the Mare Tranquillitatis. It was named after French astronomer François Arago in 1935. Its diameter is 26 km. To the southwest lies the crater Manners, and beyond are Dionysius and the Ritter–Sabine crater pair. To the southeast is the large Lamont formation that has been submerged by the mare. The rim of Arago has a bulge in the western wall. There is a central ridge that runs towards the northern wall. The surface of the mare nearby is marked by wrinkle ridges, most notably to the east and southeast. To the north is a large lunar dome A lunar dome is a type of shield volcano that is found on the surface of the Earth's Moon. They are typically formed by highly viscous, possibly silica-rich lava, erupting from localized vents followed by relatively slow cooling. Lunar domes are ... designated Arago Alpha (α). A similar-sized lunar dome is located an equal distance to the west, designated Arago Beta (β). S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_launches_with_LRO_and_LCROSS.jpg "Click for more on -> Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter")
.png "Click for more on -> Mare Imbrium")
