Exploring the Largest Impact Basin on the Moon #SpaceSaturday
The moon is an object marred by impacts. Without a true atmosphere, the moon has very little protection from objects drawn in by its gravity. The story of the Moon’s vulnerability is written the scars along its skin. The largest impact on the Moon’s near side is called the Imbrium Basin. At a 1,160 kilometers, the Imbrium Basin is wider than Spain, and boasts magnificent lunar features. Here’s more from Astronomy Now:
Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains), the huge lava plain that we see today in the Moon’s north-western quadrant, is the most obvious legacy of that ancient, cataclysmic event. Second only in size to neighbouring Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), Mare Imbrium is obvious to the naked eye on a 10 day-old gibbous Moon; indeed, Imbrium forms the left eye of the famous ‘Man in the Moon’ feature. Raise a pair of binoculars or train a small telescope on Imbrium and it shouldn’t take long to realise that Mare Imbrium is bordered by a number of very impressive mountain ranges.
The most striking range is Montes Apenninus (the lunar Apennines), which majestically guard the south-eastern shore of Mare Imbrium. They sweep in a 600-kilometres arc from Promontorium Fresnel in the north to the peaks east of crater Eratosthenes. Montes Apenninus’ highest peaks include the impressive Mons Huygens (5,500 metres), the highest peak on the Moon, and Mons Hadley (4,600 metres), lying close to its eastern extremities. A 150–200m (six- to eight-inch) telescope, operating at a power of around 150× to 200×, zooms in nicely on Mons Huygens and just to its west Mons Ampère (3,000 metres).
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