Descartes is a heavily worn
lunar
Lunar most commonly means "of or relating to the Moon".
Lunar may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lunar'' (series), a series of video games
* "Lunar" (song), by David Guetta
* "Lunar", a song by Priestess from the 2009 album ''Prior t ...
impact crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...
that is located in the rugged south-central highlands of 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 ...
. To the southwest is the crater
Abulfeda
Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...
. It is named after the
French philosopher,
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
and
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
.
The rim of Descartes survives only in stretches, and is completely missing in the north. The crater Descartes A lies across the southwest rim. The interior floor contains several curved ridges. These are
concentric with the surviving outer walls to the northwest and southeast.
A section of the outer rim of Descartes is covered by a region that has a higher
albedo
Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that refl ...
than the surrounding surface. Low-altitude measurements by the
Lunar Prospector showed that this patch is actually a
magnetic anomaly—the strongest on the near side of the Moon. This magnetic field may be deflecting particles from the
solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...
, and thus preventing the underlying surface from growing darker because of
space weathering
Space weathering is the type of weathering that occurs to any object exposed to the harsh environment of outer space. Bodies without atmospheres (including the Moon, Mercury, the asteroids, comets, and most of the moons of other planets) take on ...
. This is similar to the process causing
Reiner Gamma and other bright swirls such as those of
Mare Marginis
Mare Marginis (Latin ''marginis'', the "Sea of the Edge") is a lunar mare that lies on the very edge of the lunar nearside. The selenographic coordinates of this feature are 13.3° N, 86.1° E, and the diameter is 358 km. The name is Latin ...
and
Mare Ingenii
Mare Ingenii (Latin ''ingeniī'', the "Sea of Cleverness") is one of the few lunar mare features on the far side of the Moon. The mare sits in the Ingenii basin, which is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, which lies in turn in the outer part of the ol ...
.
About 50 kilometers to the north of this crater was the landing site of
Apollo 16. The uneven region about the landing area is sometimes called the
Descartes Highlands or the Descartes Mountains.
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 Descartes.
File:Descartes A crater AS16-P-4565.jpg, Descartes A crater
References
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External links
*
Descartes at The Moon Wiki*
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Impact craters on the Moon
René Descartes
{{Craters on the Moon: C-F