Caloris Planitia
| Great Plain on Mercury | ||
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| Caloris Planitia | ||
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| Caloris Planitia, mosaic from photos by MESSENGER | ||
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| position | 31 ° N , 170 ° E | |
| expansion | 1550 km | |
| history | ||
| Age | 39,000,000,000 years | |
| Eponym | Latin for heat | |
Caloris Planitia ( Latin calor , genitive: caloris , = warmth , heat and planitia = surface, plane, so about "heat plane" or "heat basin") is the largest impact basin on the planet Mercury with a diameter of 1550 km .
The Caloris Planitia was named because, due to the resonance between Mercury's rotational and orbital movement, the longitude of the basin is aligned with the sun on every second passage of the point of the orbit closest to the sun .
description
The Caloris Basin was probably formed by the impact of an asteroid about 100 km or even 150 km in diameter 3.9 billion years ago; presumably this penetrated deep into the Mercury crust, whereby mantle rocks were possibly exposed. It is believed that the energy of the impact broke up about 500,000 km² of terrain on the opposite side of the planet, so that mountains over 1,800 m high unfolded there. The impact was so violent that the seismic vibrations around the location of the impact raised several concentric ring walls and lava emerged from the interior of the planet.
The inside of the rather flat, huge and circular basin, which is located north of the equator , is bounded by the Caloris Montes , an irregular mountain ring (or mountain range), the peaks of which only reach a height of about 1 km to 2 km.
The interior of the basin appears to have been filled in by the magma from below, much like the mare basins of the moon. These lava plains have a peculiarly wrinkled texture that is only known from Mercury so far and have significantly fewer craters than other Mercury regions. The bottom of the basin is shaped by many concentric furrows and ridges that are reminiscent of a target and give it a resemblance to the approximately comparable large multi-ring system on the moon, in whose center the Mare Orientale is located.
See also
Web links
- Caloris Planitia in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS