Vallis Schroteri
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Schroter's Valley, frequently known by the Latinized name Vallis Schröteri, is a sinuous valley or rille on the surface of the near side 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 ...
. It is located on a rise of continental ground, sometimes called the Aristarchus plateau, that is surrounded by the Oceanus Procellarum to the south and west and the
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 ...
to the northwest. At the southern edge of this rise are the craters Aristarchus and
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
. This is the largest sinuous rille on the Moon. It begins at a 6 km diameter crater located 25 km to the north of Herodotus. (The start of the rille has been termed the "Cobra's Head" by some observers, due to its resemblance to a snake.) From the crater it follows a meandering path, first to the north, then setting a course toward the northwest, before finally bending back to the south until it reaches a 1 km high precipice at the edge of the Oceanus Procellarum. The rille has a maximum width of about 10 km, then gradually narrows to less than a kilometer near its terminus. The origins of this rille are believed to be
volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...
. The interior floor has been resurfaced and is very level. However, there is a slender rille located on the floor, which can be photographed from
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
with a good telescope and good seeing. The rille has been the subject of numerous transient lunar phenomena observations. The selenographic coordinates of this valley are , and it has a maximum diameter of 168 km. It is named for Johannes H. Schröter. It was a potential landing site for the canceled Apollo 18 mission. In April 2020, Intuitive Machines announced that Vallis Schröteri would be the target site of its first lunar landing attempt in October 2021. The company was awarded a $77 million
Commercial Lunar Payload Services Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to contract transportation services able to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon's south polar region mostly with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in situ ...
(CLPS) contract in May 2019 to land science payloads on the Moon for
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
. The robotic Nova C lander will be launched on a
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
Falcon 9 rocket. By April 2021, however, the landing site had been changed to a location between Mare Serenitatis and Mare Crisium instead.


References

Valleys on the Moon Volcanism on the Moon {{Valleys on the Moon