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Mare Humorum (Latin ''hūmōrum'', the "Sea of Moisture" or "Sea of Humors") is a lunar mare. The impact basin it is located in is across.
File:Humorum basin topo.jpg, Satellite image
File:Humorum basin GRAIL gravity.jpg, Gravity map based on GRAIL
Mare Humorum (Latin ''hūmōrum'', the "Sea of Moisture" or "Sea of Humors") is a lunar mare. The impact basin it is located in is across.
Geology
It was not sampled by the Apollo program, so a precise age has not been determined. However, geological mapping indicates that it is intermediate in age between the Imbrium and Nectaris Basins, suggesting an age of about 3.9 billion years. The Humorum basin is filled with a thick layer of marebasalt
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 ...
, believed to exceed 3 kilometers in thickness at the center of the basin.
A mass concentration (mascon), or gravitational high, was identified in the center of Mare Humorum from Doppler tracking of the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1968. The mascon was confirmed and mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector and GRAIL.
On the north edge of Mare Humorum is the large crater Gassendi, which was considered as a possible landing site for Apollo 17
Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the eleventh and final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, ...
. To the south are the floor-fractured Vitello crater, the partially flooded Doppelmayer, and the smaller Puiseux. To the east are Hippalus crater and Promontorium Kelvin. To the west are the Rimae Doppelmayer and the Rupes Liebig, which are cliffs near Liebig itself which is just west of the mare.
Names
Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Humorum was named by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. Previously, the 17th century astronomerPierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...
had named it Anticaspia ('opposite to the Caspian', referring to Mare Crisium, which he had named after the Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...
), and Michael van Langren had labelled it the Mare Venetum (" Venetian Sea") in his 1645 map.Ewen A. Whitaker, ''Mapping and Naming the Moon'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.41, 198. Johannes Hevelius called it Sinus Sirbonis ("Bay of Serbonis", after the lake of Serbonis, now Lake Bardawil, in Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
) in his 1647 map.
See also
* Volcanism on the MoonReferences
External links
* {{Lunar maria Humorum