Linnaeus (moon crater)
| Linnaeus | ||
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| Linnaeus crater | ||
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| position | 27.73 ° N , 11.79 ° O | |
| diameter | 2 km | |
| Card sheet | 42 (PDF) | |
| Named after | Carl von Linné (1707–1778) | |
| Named since | 1935 | |
| Unless otherwise stated, the information comes from the entry in the IAU / USGS database | ||
Linnaeus is an impact crater on the moon . It is named after the Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné . The name comes from the German astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler and was officially determined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1935 .
location
The crater is located in the western half of the Mare Serenitatis . Its selenographic coordinates are 27 ° 42 'north and 11 ° 48' east.
description
Linnaeus is 2.4 kilometers in diameter and 600 meters deep. The small crater has a sharp, circular rim and is surrounded by light-colored ejecta, the rim of which is up to 10 kilometers in diameter. In steep sunlight, it glows as a bright white spot. Due to this brightness, like the large radiation systems, it is one of the young structures.
Observation history
In the past, various observers have described several alleged changes in the shape and size of the crater. From this they concluded that it was the crater of an active volcano .
In the 19th century, Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich von Mädler, among others , observed it as a small, but clearer and deeper crater, which in this respect is comparable to the Bessel crater , the largest crater in the Mare Serenitatis. Until 1837, Beer and Mädler produced a map of the moon that was unsurpassed in detail for decades using a telescope with an opening width of 9.5 cm . In their book The Moon, which was published in the same year, they described it as a dead, unchangeable world. Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt , who had also referred to the Linné as a deep crater, became director of the Athens observatory in 1858 and used the telescope there with an opening width of 18 cm for his lunar studies, which by 1878 also resulted in a very detailed map of the moon. In 1866, he reported that the crater had suddenly disappeared and was instead a blank spot. This message led to a resurgence in lunar exploration.
Since 1843 there have been no more observation reports on Linnaeus. For this period between 1843 and 1866 it was mostly assumed that a moonquake could have destroyed the crater. The alleged changes were hotly debated and some astronomers cited the crater as an example until the middle of the 20th century that the lunar surface also changed during periods of human observation. A long dispute over the supposed volcanic activity lasted until 1967, when the first photos of the crater by lunar probes were made. Today it is more likely that there has been no disappearance or other changes. The observation history of Linnaeus crater is a classic example of how detailed observations at the resolution limit of a telescope lead to errors. The brightness of the courtyard around Linnaeus varies depending on the angle of incidence in the course of the moon phases and the libration .
Because of the high level of albedo, Linnaeus is one of the main craters in its region; but the secondary craters named after him are all larger than him.
Secondary crater
| Letter | position | diameter | link |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. | 28.99 ° N , 14.36 ° E | 4 km | [1] |
| B. | 30.5 ° N , 14.16 ° E | 5 km | [2] |
| D. | 28.73 ° N , 17.1 ° E | 4 km | [3] |
| F. | 32.32 ° N , 13.93 ° O | 5 km | [4] |
| G | 35.88 ° N , 13.29 ° E | 4 km | [5] |
| H | 33.75 ° N , 13.76 ° E | 3 km | [6] |
The Linnaeus crater was renamed " Banting " in 1973 by the IAU .
See also
literature
- Antonín Rükl : Lunar Atlas. Dausien, Hanau 1990, ISBN 3-7684-2047-7 , p. 72.
