Deslandres (crater)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Crater characteristics | |
| Coordinates | 32.5° S, 5.2° W |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 256 km |
| Depth | Unknown |
| Colongitude | 5° at sunrise |
| Eponym | Henri A. Deslandres |
Deslandres is the heavily worn and distorted remains of a lunar impact crater. It is located to the southeast of the Mare Nubium, in the rugged southern highlands of the moon. In dimension it is the second-largest crater formation on the visible moon, being beaten only by the 303-kilometer-diameter Bailly crater. The northern and eastern parts of the floor display a relatively level surface, but it is pock-marked with numerous craters. There is a small region of mare material, due to basaltic lava, along the eastern interior floor.
The Walther crater is attached to the remnant of the eastern rim, and Ball crater intrudes into the southwestern rim. The crater remnant Lexell crater has broken across the southeastern rim, forming a "harbor" in the crater floor due to the wide gap in its northern rim. The irregular Regiomontanus crater is attached to the northeast rim of Deslanders. Hell crater lies entirely within the western rim.
The satellite crater 'Hell Q' lies at the center of a patch of higher albedo surface located in the eastern half of Deslandres. Around the time of the full moon this feature is one of the brightest spots on the lunar surface. The light hue indicates a relatively youthful feature in lunar geologic terms. This patch is sometimes referred to as "Cassini's bright spot", as it had first been mapped by Cassini in 1672 at the Paris Observatory.
This feature is so heavily eroded and degraded by overlapping impacts that it wasn't actually recognized as a crater formation until the 20th century. The name for this formation was suggested by Eugène M. Antoniadi in 1942, and was passed during the first general assembly of the IAU in 1948.
[edit] References
- Wood, Chuck (2006-09-22). Hell Plain. Lunar Photo of the Day. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.
- Wood, Chuck (2005-04-15). A Floorful of History. Lunar Photo of the Day. Retrieved on 2006-07-21.
- Andersson, L. E.; Whitaker, E. A., (1982). NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature. NASA RP-1097.
- Blue, Jennifer (July 25, 2007). Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS. Retrieved on 2007-08-05.
- Bussey, B.; Spudis, P. (2004). The Clementine Atlas of the Moon. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81528-2.
- Cocks, Elijah E.; Cocks, Josiah C. (1995). Who's Who on the Moon: A Biographical Dictionary of Lunar Nomenclature. Tudor Publishers. ISBN 0-936389-27-3.
- McDowell, Jonathan (July 15, 2007). Lunar Nomenclature. Jonathan's Space Report. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
- Menzel, D. H.; Minnaert, M.; Levin, B.; Dollfus, A.; Bell, B. (1971). "Report on Lunar Nomenclature by The Working Group of Commission 17 of the IAU". Space Science Reviews 12: 136.
- Moore, Patrick (2001). On the Moon. Sterling Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-304-35469-4.
- Price, Fred W. (1988). The Moon Observer's Handbook. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521335000.
- Rükl, Antonín (1990). Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 0-913135-17-8.
- Webb, Rev. T. W. (1962). Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes, 6th revision, Dover. ISBN 0-486-20917-2.
- Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999). Mapping and Naming the Moon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62248-4.
- Wlasuk, Peter T. (2000). Observing the Moon. Springer. ISBN 1852331933.
