Cone crater is a small crater in the Fra Mauro highlands, north of

Fra Mauro Fra Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (c.1400–1464) was a Venetian cartographer who lived in the Republic of Venice. He created the most detailed and accurate map of the world up until that time, the Fra Mauro map. Mauro was a monk of the Camaldolese ...

crater, on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. The name of the crater was formally adopted by the

IAU The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach ...

in 1973. The

Apollo 14 Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at s ...

astronauts

Alan Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...

and

Edgar Mitchell Edgar Dean Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hour ...

landed the

Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...

(LM) ''Antares'' southwest of Cone crater on February 5, 1971. During the descent, Cone crater was a major landmark. Sampling

ejecta Ejecta (from the Latin: "things thrown out", singular ejectum) are particles ejected from an area. In volcanology, in particular, the term refers to particles including pyroclastic materials (tephra) that came out of a volcanic explosion and magma ...

from Cone was a primary scientific goal of the mission, as Cone would have penetrated the lunar regolith (soil) and brought some of the

Fra Mauro Formation The Fra Mauro formation (or Fra Mauro Highlands) is a formation on the near side of Earth's Moon that served as the landing site for the American Apollo 14 mission in 1971. It is named after the 80-kilometer-diameter crater Fra Mauro, located ...

to the surface. The Fra Mauro Formation is interpreted as ejecta from the Imbrium impact event - an important time-stratigraphic marker in lunar history. The astronauts attempted to reach Cone on their second

EVA Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in t ...

, and came very close to it and sampled the ejecta. But due to confusing topography they never reached the rim of the crater.''Apollo 14 Preliminary. Science Report'', NASA Special Publication 272 (SP-272), 1971. Prepared by NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. Scientific and Technical information Office, Washington, D.C.

Gallery

File:Cone crater M1096608496LC.jpg, Another LRO image with a much lower sunlight angle File:Apollo 14 landing site 3133 h2.jpg, This was the best pre-Apollo 14 image of Cone crater and the landing site, taken by

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 S ...

File:AS14-68-9452 (21032152944).jpg, Boulders of ejecta from Cone crater known as ''Saddle Rock'' (Station C1 of the mission), sampled by the astronauts

References

{{reflist Impact craters on the Moon Apollo 14