The southern sea

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This entry is part 3 of 38 in the series Lunarcy

This last lunation had a night where Mare Australe was very well displayed. This is a mare unlike others, consisting of a collection of craters with flooded floors rather than a broad expanse of basalts like Imbrium and Humorus. In the middle of this collection of black spots is one larger one, the crater Lyot (145km dia.). In the early 1960s I learned that Lyot was the prominent 9km crater on the floor of Ptolemaeus, now known as Ammonius. I've labeled Lyot as a reference point. Above Lyot is a very circular dark crater half the size of Lyot. This is Oken (75km) with the bright crater Hamilton (60km) between it and the limb. Above these two is another dark patch, Marinus (also 60km). At the very top limb of this image is the dark floored crater, Abel (117km).

Going back to Lyot we see a very dark crater on the western edge of this mare, Brisbane (46km). Further out from this in the same direction we see a nearly vertical gash. This is end of Vallis Rheita. Lastly, on the far lower left end of this field of dark floored craters, is an isolate one Hanno (58km). You can hunt out more features using some of the online atlases like  the 1:1 Million-Scale Maps of the Moon at: https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Moon1to1MAtlas

 

 

Fra Mauro – Apollo 14

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Fra Mauro - Apollo 14. Credit: Rik Hill

Somewhere near the large crater Fra Mauro are two golf balls. That is what most people remember best from the Apollo 14 mission, the third manned mission to land on the moon. Not only did Commander Alan Shepard hit those two golf balls during over 9 hours of EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) but they also brought back a then record 42.8kg of rocks. The landing site was north of the crater Fra Mauro (99km dia.) seen here just left of center with a small central crater, Fra Mauro E (4km) in the center and is marked with a small circle in the fairly rugged terrain (compared to the previous two landing sites of Apollo 11 and 12).

Below Fra Mauro are two craters, one with two large rimae almost at right angles to each other. This is Parry (49km) with the Rimae Parry and to the left of it is Bonpland (61km). These three are old craters, maybe over 4 billion years old. Below these ancient rings is a smaller, obviously younger crater, Tolansky (14km) about a billion years younger.

At the bottom of the image is another ruined crater, Guericke (60km). To the right of Guericke is a very young crater Kundt (12km) possibly less than a billion years old. Before leaving this scene look to the upper right of Fra Mauro and the odd mountainous terrain there. The largest mountain, shaped like a spearhead, is Fra Mauro Eta which has a small crater Fra Mauro R (3km) on top (unfortunately in the shadow in this image).  It was speculated, at one time, that this might be a volcanic vent but Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) QuickMap imagery shows it to be little different from surrounding craters of similar diameter.