Sinus Medii
| Sinus Medii | ||
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| Sinus Medii, in the lower right part of the picture, vertical view of the lunar orbiter Clementine . Above sinus aestuum and above right part of the Mare Vaporum . | ||
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| position | 1.63 ° N , 1.03 ° E | |
| diameter | 287 km | |
| See also Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature | ||
Sinus Medii - Latin for bay in the middle - is a small lunar sea in the center of the Earth-facing side of the moon . The name comes from the German astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler and was officially established in 1935 by the International Astronomical Union .
The dark gray basalt surface of the solidified lava lake has an oval shape with a diameter of about 330 × 170 kilometers. When the sun is low, some north-south running terrain lines and grooves can be recognized by their shadows. The center of the lowlands has the selenographic coordinates 2 ° north and 1 ° east.
The southwest, eponymous part is almost round and has only two small craters with 7 km ( Bruce ) and 5 km. At the southern edge, the lava has flooded the Oppolzer crater wall and transformed it into a ghost crater .
The north-eastern part is a little more furrowed and has a 30 km large impact crater with Triesnecker . In the north, the lava plain narrows along the Triesnecker and Hyginus grooves , which lead to the Mare Vaporum .
In the west, the Sinus Medii is separated from the Sinus Aestuum by a chain of hills . The most striking structure further south is the 153 km wide Ptolemaeus whale plain .
The lunar probes Surveyor 4 and Surveyor 6 landed in Sinus Medii in 1967 . The former failed, while Surveyor 6 sent thousands of images and data in several weeks.
To the north of the Sinus Medii at the lunar crater Ukert , the visual effect Lunar V can be observed at the lunar terminator at a moon age of around 6.7 days, shortly before reaching the first lunar quarter .
See also
Literature and web links
- The-moon.wikispaces.com: Sinus Medii (English)