Mare Moscoviense
| Mare Moscoviense | ||
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| Mare Moscoviense | ||
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| position | 27.28 ° N , 148.12 ° O | |
| diameter | 276 km | |
| See also Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature | ||
The Mare Moscoviense ( Latin for "Moscow Sea") is a striking, dark plain in the middle of the mountainous back of the moon . Besides the Mare Ingenii, it is the only lunar sea on this side of the Earth's moon that is permanently turned away from us and has a diameter of about 350 km.
Discovery and naming
The mare - then called Mare Moskwa - was discovered as a dark object in images of the Soviet lunar probe Lunik 3 , which first transmitted images from the back of the moon to earth in 1959 . It was named after the Russian capital Moscow . As with all structures on the Earth's moon, the international spelling is Latin.
Emergence
The Moscow Sea is about as big as the Mare Humorum or Nectaris on the front of our satellite, but in contrast to these has no noticeable gravity anomaly in the subsurface, i.e. H. no mascon in the deep lunar crust or in the mantle rock below. Like Maria on the visible half of the moon, it may have been caused by the impact of a large asteroid , but no reliable information about its size is possible due to the lack of the Mascon effect. It is very likely that this impact was followed by the slow pouring of a basalt and lava cover . Due to the conspicuous dark color of the ground, it is assumed that Mare Moscoviense, like the moon crater Tsiolkovskiy, is younger than the large Maria on the side facing the earth.
Swirls can be seen in the west of the Mares . The cause of these rare, bright "moon vortices" has not yet been conclusively clarified.
Surroundings
The Mare Moscoviense is located in a highland with numerous craters . The mare is surrounded by the remains of a circular mountain ring that was created by the impact. There are relatively few new craters inside, which is consistent with the theory of young age. The largest craters are Komarov in the southeast and Titov in the north. The peculiar location of the dark Mare Moskwa in the middle of a bright, crater-covered highland is all the more noticeable in more recent images, as there is a structure of almost the same size just 200 km south, the giant crater Mendeleev , and south and west of it Gagarin and Korolev . They do not have a dark lava surface, but have mascons in the underground. Geologically and selenographically , however, the Apollo and Hertzsprung basins are related.
Gravity field
The Moscow Sea is about the same size as the Mare Humorum on the front and has a similar but smaller gravity anomaly : slightly positive in the middle, surrounded by an area of strongly negative anomalies. Apart from the lava filling, this gravity image is similar to that of three giant craters on the back of the moon, especially the round Hertzsprung impact basin in the right half of the image.
Web links
- Investigation results of the American space probe Clementine (English)
- Lunar.arc.nasa.gov: Mare Moscoviense (English)
- The-moon.wikispaces.com: Mare Moscoviense (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kevin G. Thaisen, et al .: Geology of the Moscoviense Basin ; P. 5–6 (PDF)