Mare Serenitatis (Latin ''serēnitātis'', the "Sea of Serenity") is a

lunar mare The lunar maria (; singular: mare ) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient asteroid impacts on the far side on the Moon that triggered volcanic activity on the opposite (near) side. They were dubbed , Latin for 'seas' ...

located to the east of Mare Imbrium on 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 ...

. Its diameter is .

Geology

Mare Serenitatis is located within the Serenitatis basin, which is of the Nectarian

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

. The material surrounding the mare is of the

Lower Imbrian The Imbrian is a lunar geologic period divided into two epochs, the Early and Late. Early Imbrian In the lunar geologic timescale, the Early Imbrian epoch occurred from 3,850 million years ago to about 3,800 million years ago. It overlaps the en ...

epoch, while the mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The mare

basalt Basalt (; ) is an 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 surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

covers a majority of the basin and overflows into Lacus Somniorum to the northeast. The most noticeable feature is the crater

Posidonius Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...

on the northeast rim of the mare. The ring feature to the west of the mare is indistinct, except for Montes Haemus. Mare Serenitatis connects with

Mare Tranquillitatis Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin ''tranquillitātis'', the Sea of Tranquillity or Sea of Tranquility; see spelling differences) is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. It is the first location on another world to be ...

to the southeast and borders

Mare Vaporum Mare Vaporum (Latin ''vapōrum'', the "sea of vapors") is a lunar mare located between the southwest rim of Mare Serenitatis and the southeast rim of Mare Imbrium. It was named by Giovanni Battista Riccioli in 1651.''Autostar Suite Astronomer ...

to the southwest. Mare Serenitatis is an example of 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 dist ...

, an anomalous gravitational region on the moon. A mass concentration (mascon), or gravitational high, was identified in the center of Mare Serenitatis from Doppler tracking of the five

Lunar Orbiter The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 through 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon's surface, they provided the first photographs ...

spacecraft in 1968. The mascon was confirmed and mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector and

GRAIL The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure. The two small spacecraf ...

. File:Serenitatis basin topo.jpg, Topographic map File:Serenitatis basin GRAIL gravity.jpg, Gravity map based on

Names

Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Serenitatis was named by

Giovanni Riccioli Giovanni Battista Riccioli, SJ (17 April 1598 – 25 June 1671) was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. He is known, among other things, for his experiments with pendulums and with falling bodies, for his discussion ...

, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. Previously, William Gilbert had cited it as within the Regio Magna Occidentalis ("Large Western Region") in his map of ''c''.1600.

Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 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 also spent much t ...

had included it as part of the 'Homuncio' ('little man'), referring to a small humanoid figure that he could see among the maria; Gassendi also referred to it as 'Thersite' after

Thersites In Greek mythology, Thersites (; Ancient Greek: Θερσίτης) was a soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. Family The ''Iliad'' does not mention his father's name, which may suggest that he should be viewed as a commoner rathe ...

, the ugliest warrior in the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ...

. Michael Van Langren had labelled it the Mare Eugenianum ("Eugenia's Sea") in his 1645 map, in honour of Isabella Clara Eugenia, queen of the

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

. And

Johannes Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...

included it within Pontus Euxinus (after the classical name for the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

) in his 1647 map.

Exploration

Both

Luna 21 ''Luna 21'' (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission, and its spacecraft, of the Luna program, also called ''Lunik 21'', in 1973. The spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover, ''Lunokhod 2''. The primary obje ...

and Apollo 17 landed near the eastern border of Mare Serenitatis, in the area of the

Montes Taurus Montes Taurus is a rugged, jumbled mountainous region on the Moon. It is located to the east of the Mare Serenitatis, in the northeastern quadrant of the Moon's near side. Coordinates of their center are , and their extent is about 170 km. ...

range. Apollo 17 landed specifically in the Taurus-Littrow valley, and Luna 21 landed in Le Monnier crater. SpaceIL's ''

Beresheet ''Beresheet'' ( he, בְּרֵאשִׁית, ''Bərēšīṯ'', "In the beginning"; Book of Genesis) was a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander and lunar probe operated by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its aims included insp ...

'' lunar lander was planned to land in Mare Serenitatis, but crashed into the surface on 11 April 2019. Its final resting place was about 33°N, 19°E, near to the centre of the

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than fo ...

Views

Image:Mare Serenetatis AS17-M-0940-0947-0954.jpg, These are three views of Mare Serenitatis, taken by the mapping camera of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, facing north-northeast from an average altitude of 107 km. At the right is the east margin of Mare Serenitatis, with the 95 km diameter crater

at the central horizon, the basalt-flooded Le Monnier crater to the south, the mare ridge (or wrinkle ridge)

Dorsa Aldrovandi Dorsa Aldrovandi is a wrinkle ridge system at in Mare Serenitatis on the Moon. It is about 127 km long and was named after the 16th century Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. The north end of the feature is at the crater Le Monnier, and ...

at center, Littrow crater at the right, and the landing site of Apollo 17 in the lower right corner in the

Taurus–Littrow Taurus–Littrow is a lunar valley located on the near side at the coordinates . It served as the landing site for the American Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, the last crewed mission to the Moon. The valley is located on the southeastern ...

valley. In the center is the relatively small crater Bessel (16 km), and two prominent rays probably from the Tycho impact far to the south. At the left is the western margin of the mare, with the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains, : pronounced * hy, Կովկասյան լեռներ, : pronounced * az, Qafqaz dağları, pronounced * rus, Кавка́зские го́ры, Kavkázskiye góry, kɐfˈkasːkʲɪje ˈɡorɨ * tr, Kafkas Dağla ...

at the central horizon, the Apennine Mountains at left, and the Sulpicius Gallus Rilles at the lower right. The sun elevation drops from 24 degrees at right to 5 degrees at left as the Command Module ''America'' orbited the moon. Image:Mare Serenitatis AS17-150-23069.jpg, Some of the strongest tonal, color, and structural contrasts among mare materials occur in Mare Serenitatis. This color Apollo 17 image shows that the dark materials were emplaced before the lighter materials near the top.

In popular culture

*Mare Serenitatis forms one of the eyes for the

Man in the Moon In many cultures, several pareidolic images of a human face, head or body are recognized in the disc of the full moon; they are generally known as the Man in the Moon. The images are based on the appearance of the dark areas (known as lunar ma ...

. *In the animation '' Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal'', Mare Serenitatis is the location of Silver Millennium and the original Moon Castle. *Mare Serenitatis is also mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Sentinel. *Most of the action in

John Wyndham John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names ...

's 1933 short story "The Last Lunarians" takes place on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. *Mare Serentitatis borders the Authority moon colony in

Robert Heinlein Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...

's novel ''

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar colony's revolt against absentee rule from Earth. The novel illustrates and discusses libertarian ideals. It is respected for i ...

''. *The most southern part of Mare Serenitatis is depicted on the cover of the album ''Apollo - Atmospheres and Soundtracks'' by Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Daniel Lanois (1982). The photograph on the cover is AS17-150-23069, made during the mission of Apollo 17 in December 1972. *"Mare Serenitatis" is the name of a Frigate-type spaceship playable in Infinite Lagrange, a game developed and published by NetEase Games.

References

External links

Mare Serenitatis at The Moon Wiki
* * * * {{Lunar maria Serenitatis Serenitatis Serenitatis