Sobkou Planitia is a large basin on the planet

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

. It is named after the ancient

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

messenger deity Sobkou (whose name is more usually transliterated

Sobek Sobek (also called Sebek or Sobki, cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲕ, Souk) was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in its f ...

). He was associated by the Egyptians with the planet Mercury.

History

Sobkou Planitia was discovered after Sobkou, the basin, was recognized as a

Pre-Tolstojan Pre-Tolstojan, also Pretolstojan Period, refers to the oldest period of the history of Mercury, 4500–3900 MYA. It is the "first period of the Eomercurian Era and of the Mercurian Eon, as well as being the first period in Mercury's geologic h ...

basin on images from ''

Mariner 10 ''Mariner 10'' was an American Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe launched by NASA on 3 November 1973, to fly by the planets Mercury (planet), Mercury and Venus. It was the first spacecraft to perform flybys of multiple planets. ''Ma ...

''.

Geology

The most prominent features within the plain itself are a pair of craters, similar in size to one another, known as Brontë and

Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is espec ...

. Brontë is the older of the two craters, and the impact that formed Degas has overlapped the edges of that older crater and spread a spray of rays across the southern regions of Sobkou Planitia and beyond. According to Peter Grego's book ''Venus and Mercury and how to observe them'' Sobkou Planitia is free of scarps,

ridges A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...

fractures Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...

and

valleys A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

. Its southeastern edge is bordered by the scarp Heemskerck Rupes which is about 300 km long which along part of the line of a very broad, bright swathe which is 1,000 km long and terminating just to the east of Chŏng Chʼŏl crater. A gravitational high, also known as a

mascon In astronomy, astrophysics and geophysics, a mass concentration (or mascon) is a region of a planet's or moon's crust that contains a large positive gravity anomaly. In general, the word "mascon" can be used as a noun to refer to an excess distr ...

, is roughly centered on Sobkou Planitia.PIA19285: Gravity Anomalies
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Photojournal Most large impact basins on the moon, such as

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 colli ...

and

Mare Crisium Mare Crisium (Latin ''crisium'', the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. The basin is of the Pre-Imbrian period, 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago. Characteristics Mare Cri ...

, are the site of mascons.

References

{{crater-stub Geology of Mercury