Hipparchus is the degraded remnant of a
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 craters ...
. It was named after the Greek astronomer, geographer and mathematician
Hipparchus
Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos''; BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equi ...
. It is located to the southeast of
Sinus Medii
Sinus Medii (Latin ''sinus mediī'' "Middle Bay") is a small lunar mare. It takes its name from its location at the intersection of the Moon's equator and prime meridian; as seen from the Earth, this feature is located in the central part of the ...
, near the center of the visible
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 south is the prominent crater
Albategnius, and to the southwest lies
Ptolemaeus
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, a feature of comparable dimensions to Hipparchus.
Horrocks lies entirely within the northeast rim of the crater.
Halley Halley may refer to:
Science
* Halley's Comet, officially designated 1P/Halley, a comet that becomes visible from Earth every 75-76 years
* Halley (lunar crater), a lunar crater named after Edmond Halley
* Halley (Martian crater), a Martian cra ...
is attached to the south rim, and
Hind A hind is a female deer, especially a red deer.
Places
* Hind (Sasanian province, 262-484)
* Hind and al-Hind, a Persian and Arabic name for the Indian subcontinent
* Hind (crater), a lunar impact crater
* 1897 Hind, an asteroid
Military ...
lies to the southeast. To the north-northeast is the bowl-shaped
Pickering, and the flooded
Saunder is located off the northeast rim. High-resolution images of Hipparchus were obtained by
Lunar Orbiter 5
Lunar Orbiter 5, the last of the "Lunar Orbiter series", was designed to take additional Apollo and Surveyor landing site photography and to take broad survey images of unphotographed parts of the Moon's far side. It was also equipped to collec ...
in 1967.
Description
![HipparchusCrater](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/HipparchusCrater.jpg)
This feature is an ancient crater that has been subject to considerable modification due to subsequent impacts. The western rim of Hipparchus has been all but worn away from impact erosion, and only low hills and rises in the surface remain to outline the feature. The wall to the east is somewhat more intact, but it too is heavily worn. A pair of deep clefts lie in the western wall. These parallel a sets of scars running through the south-central highlands. The crater floor has been partially resurfaced by
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
ic
lava
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...
flow. The southwest part of the floor, however, is slightly raised and much more rugged than the remainder. A few small rises and the raised partial rim of a flooded crater are all that remain of a central massif. Gaps in the northwest rim of Hipparchus form valleys that connect with the mare to the northwest. A
rille
Rille (German for 'groove') is typically used to describe any of the long, narrow depressions in the surface of the Moon that resemble channels. The Latin term is ''rima'', plural ''rimae''. Typically, a rille can be several kilometers wid ...
named Rima Réaumur runs from this site to the outer wall of
Réaumur.
Satellite craters
![Hipparchus lunar crater map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Hipparchus_lunar_crater_map.jpg)
By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Hipparchus.
Hooke's Observations
![Micrographia or some 9g54xj51s gm80hw18z dl full size rotated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Micrographia_or_some_9g54xj51s_gm80hw18z_dl_full_size_rotated.jpg)
In October 1664,
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...
used a 36-foot telescope to make a detailed drawing of the single crater Hipparchus and surrounding terrain, which he published as a plate in his ''
Micrographia
''Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon.'' is a historically significant book by Robert Hooke about his observations through various lenses. It w ...
'' (1665).
His drawing contained an abundance of detail, and can be considered the first high-definition illustration of an individual lunar feature. Hooke argued that its features were not fixed, but were a product of ongoing physical forces. He suggested two possible models to explain
lunar crater
Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, all of which were formed by impacts. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes 9,137 craters, of which 1,675 have been dated.
History
The wor ...
formation: projectile bombardment from space and subterranean lunar vulcanism. Less accurately, he speculated that the crater might contain
"verdant pastures" and "Vegetables analogous to our Grass, Shrubs, and Trees”.
Hipparchus in fiction
In the original version of the
Tintin
Tintin or Tin Tin may refer to:
''The Adventures of Tintin''
* ''The Adventures of Tintin'', a comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
** Tintin (character), a fictional character in the series
** ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (film), 2011, ...
book ''
Explorers on the Moon
''Explorers on the Moon'' (french: link=no, On a marché sur la Lune; literally: ''We walked on the Moon'') is the seventeenth volume of ''The Adventures of Tintin'', the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised we ...
'' (''On a marché sur la lune''), the crew lands on Hipparchus.
[éd. Casterman, coll. Tintin, 1954 (French)]
See also
* Asteroid
4000 Hipparchus
References
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External links
*Lunar Orbiter 5 frames of the interior of Hipparchus
5098509951005101LTO-77B3 Hipparchus— L&PI
topographic map
In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but historic ...
Related articles
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* {{cite web, last = Wood , first = Chuck , date = April 24, 2009 , url = http://www.lpod.org/wiki/April_24,_2009 , title = Double Crossed , publisher = Lunar Photo of the Day
Impact craters on the Moon