What are lunar seas and oceans. How did the "lunar seas" appear? What are we dealing with
© Getty ImagesThis Saturday, April 28, is Astronomy Day. It has been celebrated by amateur astronomers since the 19th century with mass displays of the starry sky. These shows were timed to coincide with astronomical events such as the appearance of comets or solar eclipses.
Over time, Astronomy Day began to be celebrated in the spring in the first days after the new moon, when the Moon is in the first quarter phase, high in the sky and it is convenient to observe it.
To the Day of Astronomy website will tell readers eight interesting facts about the moon.
1. lunar city
In 1822, the astronomer Franz von Gruythuisen from Munich, looking at the moon through a telescope, saw a city on it. The city, called Vallverk, is 30 by 30 kilometers in size, located on the shores of the Znoya Bay and surrounded by a fortress wall. Inside - a lattice of shafts, reminiscent of a web. There is a citadel on the edge of the city. Gruytuizen did not see the inhabitants, but he could see the roads and animal tracks.
The astronomer's discovery caused a sensation. Gruithuisen went on a tour showing sketches of the lunar city to kings and scholars.
The city of Wallverk is located on the shores of Znoya Bay and is surrounded by a fortress wall.
The famous mathematician Gauss, inspired by the discovery of the lunar city, even offered to contact the inhabitants of Wallwerk from Siberia - to dig a network of huge channels, fill them with kerosene and set them on fire so that this signal could be seen on the moon. Contemporaries, however, said that Gauss was a man with a sparkling sense of humor.
2. Lunar eclipse for the inhabitant of the moon
During a lunar eclipse, a person who is on the moon sees a total solar eclipse, because at that moment the Earth obscures the Sun for him.
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There are at least two lunar eclipses every year. The next one is scheduled for June 4th. Unfortunately, in the coming years, lunar eclipses will hardly be visible. A total lunar eclipse will only occur on April 15, 2014.
3 . LunnohembassiesO
According to the Outer Space Treaty, celestial bodies cannot belong to any state. But in 1980, Californian Dennis Hope decided that this document did not apply to individuals. And he declared himself the owner of all objects of the solar system, except for the Earth and the Sun. He founded the company "Lunar Embassy" ("Lunar Embassy") and began to trade plots of "his" possessions, mainly on the Moon.
Plots on the dark side of the moon are not for sale
On average, a plot of 1 acre (0.4 ha) of the Moon costs $15-20. Representative office of "Lunar Embassy" in Ukraine sells plots at a price of 900 UAH per acre. Upon purchase, a property agreement, a map of the Moon with a mark of the purchased plot and a Lunar Constitution are issued.
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Plots on the dark side of the moon are not for sale. Also, the site where the astronauts landed is not for sale - Hope wants to make a national reserve there. Land on the moon is owned by John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Ronaldo and more than 2 million other people.
Lots on the Moon are also traded by the Lunar Registry and smaller firms, many of which resell the land purchased from the Lunar Embassy.
4. Moon caves
More recently, it turned out that there are caves on the moon. The first was discovered by the Japanese Kaguya probe near the Marius Hills. Scientists believe that the cave was formed by lava flows. Its width at the entrance is 65 meters. Presumably, the length of the tunnel can reach several tens of kilometers, and the height - 20-30 meters.
On the surface of the Moon, several more such holes are visible, which may be entrances to caves. Such underground tunnels can serve the good cause of the colonization of the moon, as they protect from radiation and extreme cold. It is believed that the temperature inside the lunar caves is about 35 degrees below zero, while on the surface it can drop to -160 degrees.
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5. Fairy Seas on the Moon
On the visible side of the Moon, there are oceans, seas, lakes, and marshes without water. The Seas were discovered in the 17th century by the astronomer Giovanni Riccioli. He, like many other scientists of that time, was sure that the surface of the Moon was similar to the earth's and the dark spots were filled with water. In fact, these are just lowlands filled with lava.
The lunar seas have such poetic names that it seems that this is not a gloomy desert area, but a fabulous planet. Here is the Sea of Nectar, the Sea of the Serpent, the Sea of Plenty, the Ocean of Storms, the Bay of Love, the Bay of the Rainbow, the Lake of Death, the Lake of Tenderness, the Swamp of Rotting, the Swamp of Sleep.
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The Known Sea is called so because the American Ranger-7 probe landed on it, and man first set foot on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility, which is equal in area to our Black Sea.
On the far side of the Moon there are only two seas - Moscow and Dreams. They were first photographed by the Soviet interplanetary station.
6 NASA Avatars
As a first step in space colonization, NASA decided to send "avatars" to the moon. Avatars are robots with a telepresence device. To remotely control the robots, NASA employees will wear special suits similar to those shown in science fiction films about virtual reality.
7. False Moon
People can observe such optical illusions as a false moon and a lunar halo.
In the language of science, a false moon is called a paraselena. The British call her moon dog - moon dog. Due to the refraction of light, it sometimes seems that there is one or two smaller "moons" in the sky next to the Moon.
The halo looks like a glowing ring around the moon. It is also caused by the refraction of light by ice crystals in cirrus clouds at an altitude of 5-10 km. People's meteorologists believe that the halo around the moon - to rain.
8. Moon and money
It is said that the phases of the moon influence the behavior of financiers. A few years ago, analysts at the Australian investment bank Macquarie Securities studied the fluctuations in global financial markets and found that profits on a waxing moon were almost twice as high as profits during a full moon.
Profits on the growing moon are almost twice as high as profits during the full moon
"Using data from 1988 on various types of indices, we came to the conclusion that at the junction of the lunar months there is a powerful surge in profits," The Times quotes a report.
There is also evidence that the end of the lunar cycle is fraught with economic disasters. Thus, the analytical company CLSA found that the catastrophic collapses of world financial markets - in 2008, 1997, 1987, 1929 - occurred on the 27th day of the lunar cycle.
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The lunar seas on the Moon have nothing to do with what the word “sea” means in our understanding, they are waterless. So what are the seas on the moon? Who gave them such interesting names? The lunar seas are dark, even and rather large areas of the lunar surface visible to us from the Earth, a kind of pits.
The seas on the moon - what kind of phenomenon?
Medieval astronomers, who first saw these areas on the Moon, suggested that they were just seas filled with water. In the future, these areas were called quite romantically: the Sea of Tranquility, the Sea of Abundance, the Sea of Rains, etc. As it turned out in reality, the lunar seas and oceans are lowlands, plains. They were formed by flows of solidified lava, pouring out of the crevices of the lunar crust, which appeared as a result of its attack by meteorites. Due to the fact that the solidified lava has a darker color than the rest of the surface of the Moon, the lunar seas are visible from Earth precisely in the form of extensive dark spots.
Ocean of Storms
The largest lunar sea bearing Storms has a length of more than 2,000 kilometers, and in total, amazing depressions occupy about 16% of the satellite's surface. This is the most extensive lava spill on the Moon. It is unusual that it does not, that is, it suggests the assumption that cosmic strikes did not fall on it. And, perhaps, lava simply flowed from neighboring dents.
Further clockwise, three clearly visible rounded seas open up to us - Rains, Clarity and Tranquility. All copyrights to these names belong to Riccioli and Grimaldi, presumably people with a very difficult character.
Features of the Sea of Rains
The Lunar Sea of Rains is the most terrible scar on the face of the Moon. According to some known data, this point was hit more than once: by asteroids and even, it is quite likely that by the nucleus of the comet itself. The first time was about 3.8 billion years ago. Lava poured out from there in several splashes, which were enough to form an ocean of Storms. "Mosquito baldness" in the Sea of Rains is rather immodest, but just opposite, on the reverse side of the lunar surface, Van der Graaff crater bulged out with a shock wave. At this point in time, somewhere in the Sea of Rains, the Chinese Jade Hare (lunar rover Yutu) has gone into the unmanifested, which has already completed its mission in the winter of 2013-2014 and now fell into its last sleep, occasionally, once every few months, modestly snoring to the delight of earthly radio amateurs.
Sea of Clarity
It has a shock origin and also with a mascon, almost as good as the previous one. Of all the lunar dents, these are the two most powerful. In the eastern part of this sea, the legendary Soviet Lunokhod-2 froze. He unsuccessfully drowned in a system of nested craters, after which he was covered with lunar dust and stuck. But, in spite of everything, he selflessly crawled along this sea for four whole months in 1973. But in the Sea of Tranquility, there are no gravitational anomalies. It does not have a percussive origin. Presumably, its formation is a consequence of the flow from the Sea of Clarity. Its fame is explained by the event that in the summer of 1969 the American Apollo 11 landed there, from which the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, came out, who uttered the catchphrase about a small step and a giant leap.
Sea of Plenty
Further, our attention is presented to another unstressed lunar sea - Abundance. It has a small, but rather strange It seems that the lowland has been present there since very ancient times, but lava flowed billions of years later. Where is unclear. This sea is known for the fact that in 1970 the Soviet "Luna-16" scooped up soil there and delivered it to Earth. That's "abundance" for you. To the north and south of the Sea of Plenty are two more seas - dents with quite clear gravitational anomalies. To the north is the Sea of Crises, to the south is the Sea of Nectar.
In general, these names are the fruit of the fantasy of intricate Italians. However, it is not clear how to explain the fact that two of our lunar stations crashed and crashed in the Sea of Crises. Our third station, it should be noted, successfully mined soil there and returned home. And no one had more desire to appear there from the Earth. And for the "nectar" they never tried at all.
The Sea of Nectar is one of the earliest seas of the Moon. He is predicted to be seventy million years older than the Sea of Rains. And there are only three large lunar seas left, they are located in a triangle to the south-west of the center of the lunar disk - these are the seas of Clouds, Humidity and the Known (emphasis on "a").
The Seas of Clouds and the Known are non-impact formations and are included in the general system of the Ocean of Storms. The Sea of Humidity is located somewhat on the outskirts and has its own very extensive mascon. The Sea of Clouds is of interest because it was formed much later in a place where there were many craters earlier. When lava poured over all the lowlands, this area was flooded along with ancient craters. But they are still visible to us, the very edges, in the form of numerous ring low hills. Of course, they are visible only in a normal telescope, pseudo-equipment will not show this. In addition to everything, there is one interesting object in the Sea of Clouds - the Straight Wall. It is a break in the lunar crust in the form of a height difference on flat terrain, which runs in an almost straight line of 120 kilometers, its height is about 300 meters.
In September 2013, a meteorite the size of a car accidentally hit this sea, exploding spectacularly. Spanish astronomers, who recorded this event, claim that this is the largest lunar meteorite of all that it seemed to mankind to see. There is still a lot of garbage walking on the Moon from the main one between Mars and Jupiter. At various times, many observers talked about some exciting and mysterious "sparks" on the surface of the moon - that's exactly what it is. The Moisture Sea Mascon is ideal for exploring. Throughout 2012, two NASA probes flew around the Moon, engaged in specific gravimetry (the GRAIL program), thanks to which a more or less clear map of all the gravitational anomalies of the Moon was compiled, and photos of the lunar seas were also taken. But nothing is known about the origin and history of occurrence there, there are no samples from there.
But the name of the last sea from our list - the Known - appeared in 1964. It is not the Italians who have tried, but the International Space Committee. It got its name because it gave a sufficient number of successful launches for all lunar programs and deliveries of soil samples.
Why don't the moon seas disappear?
A natural question arises: "Why did the Moon suffer so much? And why is it all beaten up in such a strange mystical way, while the Earth is unharmed and very beautiful?" Was Luna hired to work part-time as some kind of space shield? Far from it. The moon is not a shield for our planet. And the space debris flying into both of them is more or less evenly distributed. And, most likely, even more into the Earth - it is larger. It's just that the Moon doesn't have the ability to heal wounds. For four and a half billion years of its history, it has retained the traces of almost all the blows that were inflicted on it from space. There is nothing to heal them - there is no and no water to have erosion and smoothing; there is no vegetation to close faults and craters. The only effect on the moon is solar radiation. Thanks to her, the light scars of impact craters darken over the centuries, that's all. The soil of the Moon is everywhere - regolith. This is basalt rock ground into a kind of powder with an unthinkably exhausting threshing machine (Neil Armstrong once said that regolith smells of burning and shot caps). And the Earth immediately tightens and overgrows all combat wounds. And compared to the moon, this happens quite lightning fast. Small pits disappear without a trace, and large impact craters, of course, leave their mark, but they strongly sink and overgrow. And there are enough scars on our planet.
Locating and identifying most of the lunar seas with binoculars or the naked eye is an easy task if you have a good map of the visible side of the moon. Well, what about less noticeable details on the surface of our neighbor in space? Most of them go unnoticed. This month, we'll make amends as we intend to take a look at lunar lakes, bays, and even one swamp. Let's make our way from the lunar east to the lunar west. Before the idea of sending astronauts to the Moon evolved into the Apollo program, most of the literature used a geocentric (Earth-bound) frame of reference. In the old system, the western border of the Moon was near the western horizon of the Earth. Likewise, the eastern edge looked out over our eastern horizon. In 1961, the International Astronomical Union decided to swap them. This is contrary to what we see, but makes obvious sense when viewed from the side of the moon. In this new coordinate system, an astronaut on the Moon would see the sunrise in the east and the sunset in the west. Therefore, when a surface detail is considered to be east of another, we are talking about lunar east, which coincides with earth's west, i.e. for an observer in the Northern Hemisphere, the detail will be located on the right. Similarly, the west points to the lunar west, which looks to our east, i.e. to the left for an observer north of the earth's equator. It's clear?
The first stop on our journey is the moon swamp known as Palus Somnii, Swamp of Sleep. Lunar swamps, like the seas, are lava-covered areas, but much smaller in size. The Swamp of Sna covers approximately 177x233 km, bordering the east coast of Mare Tranquilitatis, the Sea of Tranquility. Look for a small grayish area that looks a bit like a diamond with rounded corners. Unlike the sea, which looks quite smooth through binoculars, the Swamp of Sleep has a relief surface. From the Swamp of Sleep, it would be logical to go to Lake of Dreams. Head north across the Sea of Tranquility to the Sea of Clarity, Mare Serenitatis. Note the tributary, a kind of extension in the northeast (remember, this is the lunar northeast), which seems to flow into the sea. This is Lacus Somniorum, the Lake of Dreams, an irregularly shaped plateau with indistinct boundaries. If you see the Poseidon crater spanning 95 km across, then you are in the right place. Lake of Dreams merges in the north with Lake of Death, Lacus Mortis. Sounds ominous! It is difficult to say where Dreams end and Death begins - this pair is separated only by a barely noticeable line of ripples. Visual clue: Lake of Death is located directly west of the conspicuous Atlas and Hercules craters. The best time to look for these three sights is when the Sun is high above them, between the 5th and 10th day after the new moon. Our next stop is the bridge between the Sea of Tranquility and the Sea of Nectar, Sinus Asperitatis, Gulf of Severity. Look for a well-marked pair of craters along its southern shore. The closest of the two is Theophilus, and the second one is called Kirill. Two hundred kilometers in diameter, the Bay of Severity probably got its name from the parallel mountain ranges that cross the area, and also because of the hilly terrain that borders it from the east and west. To see even a hint of them, you will certainly need giant binoculars. sinus media, Central Gulf corresponds to its name, as it is located almost in the center of the disk of the moon. This small sea, spanning just over 350 km, lies just north of the crater line. Ptolemy,Gigolo And Arzakhel, which are visible through 10x binoculars. Look for the Central Gulf and the craters between the 7th and 9th day after the new moon.
One of the most striking sights of the Moon is the Sinus Iridum, Rainbow Bay. On the tenth day after the new moon, the terminator, running across the disk of the moon, sheds sunlight on Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms. Rising slowly over the largest of the lunar seas, the Sun illuminates an unusual claw-like appendage on the northeast coast of the ocean. Initially, Rainbow Bay was a full-fledged crater, but after another impact, which led to the formation of the Sea of \u200b\u200bRains, lava poured over the southern wall and created the bay that we admire today. Two capes - Heraclid and Laplace, mark the open entrance of the bay, and the Jura Mountains outline its northern perimeter. And finally, while the moon is not yet full moon, let's find Sinus Roris, Dew Bay. This is not a standalone attraction, but rather an extension of the Ocean of Storms, which "flows" into the Sea of Cold. The area has its own name because it has a higher albedo (reflectivity) than both seas. The size varies depending on the source cited, but most indicate a size on the order of 200 km. I hope you enjoy these underrated attractions throughout June and the year as a whole. And if you want to get more binocular targets on the moon, be sure to re-read my
For many millennia, people have been watching the amazing celestial body, called the Earth's satellite - the Moon. The first astronomers noticed dark areas of various sizes on its surface, considering them to be seas and oceans. What are these spots, really?
Characteristics of the Moon as a satellite of the Earth
The Moon is the closest to the Sun and the only satellite of our planet, as well as the second clearly visible celestial body in the sky. This is the only object of astronomy that has been visited by man.
There are several hypotheses for the origin of the moon:
- The destruction of the planet Phaethon, which collided with a comet while orbiting the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Part of its fragments rushed to the Sun, and one to the Earth, forming a system with a satellite.
- During the destruction of Phaeton, the remaining core changed its orbit, "turning" into Venus, and the Moon is a former satellite of Phaeton, which the Earth captured into its orbit.
- The moon is the preserved core of Phaethon after its destruction.
But over time, when they learned about the temperature on the Moon, reaching +120°C during the day and -160°C at night, and about the absence of an atmosphere, they realized that there could be no talk of water on the Moon. By tradition, the name "Lunar seas and oceans" has remained.
A more detailed study of the Moon began with the first landing of the Soviet Luna-2 apparatus on its surface in 1959. The subsequent Luna-3 apparatus for the first time made it possible to capture its reverse side, which remains invisible from the Earth, in the pictures. In 1966, with the help of the lunar rover, the structure of the soil was established.
On July 21, 1969, a significant event took place in the world of astronautics - the landing of a man on the moon. These heroes were the Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. Although in recent years many skeptics have been talking about the falsification of this event.
The Moon is located at a great distance from the Earth by human standards - 384,467 km, which is approximately 30 diameters of the globe. In relation to our planet, the Moon has a diameter slightly larger than a quarter of the Earth, makes a complete revolution around it in an elliptical orbit in 27.32166 days.
The moon is made up of a crust, mantle and core. Its surface is covered with a mixture of dust and rocky debris formed from constant collisions with meteorites. The atmosphere of the Moon is very rarefied, which leads to a sharp fluctuation in temperatures on its surface - from -160°C to +120°C. At the same time, at a depth of 1 meter, the temperature of the rock is constant and amounts to -35°C. Due to the rarefied atmosphere, the sky on the Moon is constantly black, and not blue, as on Earth in clear weather.
Moon surface map
Observing the Moon from the Earth, even with the naked eye, one can see on it light and dark spots of various shapes and sizes. The surface is literally dotted with craters of various diameters, from a meter to hundreds of kilometers.
In the 17th century, scientists decided that the dark spots were the lunar seas and oceans, believing that there was water on the Moon, just like on Earth. Light areas were considered land. A map of the Moon's seas and craters was first drawn by the Italian scientist Giovanni Riccioli in 1651. The astronomer even gave them their own names, which are still used today. We will learn about them a little later. After the discovery by Galileo of the mountains on the moon, they began to be given names in the likeness of the Earth.
Craters are special ring mountains called cirques, they also got their names in honor of the great scientists of antiquity. After the discovery and photography by Soviet astronomers using spacecraft of the far side of the Moon, craters with the names of Russian scientists and researchers appeared on the map.
All this is plotted in detail on the lunar map of both its hemispheres, used in astronomy, because a person does not lose hope not only to land on the moon again, but also to build bases, establish a search for minerals and create a colony for a full-fledged life.
Mountain systems and craters on the moon
Craters on the Moon are the most common landform. These multiple traces of the work of meteorites and asteroids over millions of years can be seen on a clear night on a full moon without the help of optical instruments. Upon closer examination, these works of space art amaze with their originality and grandeur.
History and origin of "moon scars"
Back in 1609, the great scientist Galileo Galilei designed the world's first telescope and had the opportunity to observe the moon in multiple magnification. It was he who noticed all kinds of funnels on its surface, surrounded by "ring" mountains. He called them craters. Now let's find out why there are craters on the Moon and how they formed.
All of them basically formed after the formation of the solar system, when it was bombarded by celestial bodies left after the destruction of the planets, which rushed through it in huge numbers at crazy speed. Almost 4 billion years ago, this era ended. The earth got rid of these effects due to atmospheric influences, but the moon, devoid of an atmosphere, did not.
Astronomers' opinions about the origins of craters have been constantly changing over the centuries. They considered such theories as volcanic origin and the hypothesis about the formation of craters on the Moon with the help of "space ice". A more detailed study of the lunar surface, which became available in the 20th century, nevertheless, in its overwhelming majority, proves the impact theory from the impact of a collision with meteorites.
Description of lunar craters
Galileo in his reports and writings compared lunar craters with eyes on the tails of peacocks.
The ring-shaped appearance is the most important feature of the lunar mountains. You won't find them on Earth. Outwardly, the lunar crater is a depression, around which high round shafts rise, with which the entire surface of the Moon is dotted.
Lunar craters bear some resemblance to terrestrial volcanic craters. Unlike the earthly ones, the peaks of the lunar mountains are not so sharp, they are more round in shape with an oblong shape. If you look at the crater from the sunny side, you can see that the shadow from the mountains inside the crater is greater than the shadow outside. From this we can conclude that the bottom of the crater is lower than the surface of the satellite.
The sizes of craters on the Moon can vary in diameter and depth. The diameter can be both scanty up to several meters, and huge, reaching more than one hundred kilometers.
The larger the crater, the correspondingly deeper. The depth can reach 100 m. The outer shaft of large "lunar bowls" for more than 100 km rises up to 5 km above the surface.
Of the relief features that distinguish lunar craters, the following can be distinguished:
- Inner slope;
- External slope;
- The depth of the crater bowl itself;
- System and length of rays diverging from the outer shaft;
- The central peak at the bottom of the crater, which is found in large ones, is more than 25 km in diameter.
- Al-Battani C - a spherical crater with a sharp shaft, up to 10 km in diameter;
- Bio - the same Al-Battani C, but with a flat bottom, from 10 to 15 km;
- Sozigen - an impact crater ranging in size from 15 to 25 km;
- Trisnecker is a lunar crater up to 50 km in diameter, with a sharp peak in the center;
- Tycho - craters with a terraced slope and a flat bottom, over 50 km.
The largest craters on the moon
The history of the study of lunar craters can be read by the names given by their explorers. As soon as Galileo discovered them with a telescope, many scientists who tried to create a map came up with their own names for them. The lunar mountains of the Caucasus, Vesuvius, the Apennines appeared ...
Names were given to craters in honor of the scientists Plato, Ptolemy, Galileo, in honor of St. Catherine. After the promulgation of the map of the reverse side by Soviet scientists, the crater named after. Tsiolkovsky, Gagarin, Korolev and others.
The largest officially listed crater is Hertzsprung. Its diameter is 591 km. It is invisible to us, as it is located on the invisible side of the moon. It is a huge crater in which smaller ones are located. Such a structure is called a multi-ring structure.
The second largest crater bears the name Grimaldi, named after the Italian physicist. Its diameter is 237 km. Crimea can be freely located inside it.
The third huge lunar crater is Ptolemy. Its width in diameter is about 180 km.
Oceans and seas on the moon
The lunar seas are also a bizarre shape of the relief of the satellite's surface in the form of huge dark spots, attracting the eyes of more than one generation of astronomers.
The concept of the sea and ocean on the moon
For the first time the seas appeared on the maps of the Moon after the invention of the telescope. Galileo Galilei, who first examined these dark spots, suggested that these were water spaces.
Since then, they began to be called seas and appeared on the maps after a detailed study of the surface of the visible part of the Moon. Even after it turned out that there is no atmosphere on the Earth’s satellite and there is no possibility of the presence of moisture, they did not fundamentally change it.
The seas on the Moon - strange dark valleys on its visible part from the Earth, are huge low-lying areas with a flat bottom, filled with magma. Billions of years ago, volcanic processes left an indelible mark on the relief of the lunar surface. Huge areas extend over distances from 200 to 1000 km across.
The seas appear dark to us because they do not reflect sunlight well. The depth from the surface of the satellite can reach 3 km, which boasts the size of the Sea of \u200b\u200bRains on the Moon.
The largest sea is called the Ocean of Storms. This lowland stretches for 2000 km.
The visible seas on the Moon are located within the ring-shaped mountain ranges, which also have their own names. The Sea of Clarity is located near the Serpent's Ridge. Its diameter is 700 km, but it is not remarkable for this. Of interest are the various colors of lava that stretch along its bottom. A large positive gravity anomaly has been detected in the Sea of Clarity.
The most famous seas, bays and lakes
Of the seas, one can distinguish such as the sea of Humidity, Abundance, Rains, Waves, Clouds, Islands, Crisis, Foam, Known. On the other side of the Moon there is the Sea of Moscow.
In addition to the only Ocean of Storms and seas, there are bays, lakes and even swamps on the Moon, which have their own official names. Let's consider the most interesting ones.
The lakes received such names as the lake of Awe, Spring, Oblivion, Tenderness, Perseverance, Hatred. Bays include Loyalty, Love, Tenderness and Good Luck. The swamps have corresponding names - Rotting, Sleep and Epidemics.
There are some facts related to the seas on the surface of the Earth's satellite:
- The Sea of Tranquility on the Moon is known for being the first place where a human foot set foot. In 1969, American astronauts carried out the first landing on the moon in the history of mankind.
- Raduga Bay is famous for the exploration of the Lunokhod-1 planetary rover in 1970 near it.
- At the Sea of Clarity, the Soviet Lunokhod-2 conducted its surface research.
- In the Sea of Plenty, the probe "Luna-16" in 1970 took lunar soil for testing and delivered it to Earth.
- The Known Sea became famous for the fact that in 1964 the American Ranger-7 probe landed here, which for the first time in history took a close-up photo of the Moon's surface.
The seas and craters of the Moon, thanks to modern research and images, are mapped in great detail on the map of the lunar surface. Despite this, the Earth's satellite keeps a lot of secrets and mysteries that have yet to be unraveled by man. The whole world is looking forward to sending the first colony, which will lift the veil of this amazing place in our solar system a little more.
Here is another full moon. Everyone says: "Moon, Moon ..." and take pictures of her. And a month ago there was a stir about some kind of "supermoon". A very fashionable word, from Newspeak. It means something like: "oh, such a big moon happens once every hundred years, how lucky we are that we see it." This is one of the possible approaches to the topic, such emotional news. The joy of having a fact.
There is another approach - for example, Japanese. The Japanese have a separate concept - "tsukimi", "admiring the moon." There is no binding to the facts at all, and the Moon can be in any phase. The process itself is important there, in which there is the Moon, the observer and the state of the observer.
Both are of equal interest to me. I look at the moon and see a lot of details on it. First, instant pareidolia kicks in and I see a human face there. And secondly, all these dark areas and scratches on the visible lunar disk have their own meaning and their own name. This is what seems valuable to me.
The practical use of this information is zero, I just like to see and know what I see. As with the names of stars and constellations.
Here is the Moon as seen by an observer from the Earth (that is, me) with the help of a cheap digital camera. Or a phone with a zoom in the camera lens (there are such). The main thing is to establish the shooting device on some solid support - at least on the head of a companion - so that the image comes out clear.
So what? - you ask. - The moon is like the moon, what's wrong with it?
Yes, dofiga everything in it.
Look, there are definitely three types of surfaces. The first is dark flat areas. The second is a little lighter, even gray color. And the third - some white spots and scratches, rubbish, in general. So, the dark background is the lunar seas, the gray one is like continents, and the bright spots are craters. So far, nothing new, everyone already knows this.
Also, any modern child knows that there are no real seas on the Moon, since there is no liquid water there, but they were called seas purely by chance, due to low education in the Middle Ages. And who named something?
Few people will say this, well, except perhaps some kind of ChGK-shnik with a trained memory.
Once upon a time there were two enlightened Italian Jesuits in the 17th century - Giovanni Riccioli and Francesco Grimaldi. The first was an astronomer, the second a physicist. Riccioli was engaged in all sorts of astronomical subtleties, like double stars and spots on the Sun, and Grimaldi was engaged in various tricky optics, but on the basis of studying the Moon, their interests coincided. They had a good telescope for that time, and together they made a detailed map of the moon. It happened in 1651, in the Italian city of Bologna.
So they decided that the dark areas are the seas, and the light ones are the land. And at the same time they gave everything that they could sketch various poetic names. Which of them came up with what exactly - the story is silent about this, and in places it gets confused, but the names are simply luxurious. More about them in the future.
To be honest, Riccioli and Grimaldi were not at all the first who tried to discover the seas and continents on the Earth's satellite. There were so many attempts before them. But it so happened that it was their names that remained in history.
So seas. Why are they even and dark?
Here it is necessary to say a few words about the history of the origin of our satellite.
The most widely accepted theory today is called the Giant Impact. According to her, four and a half billion years ago, some kind of crap, comparable in size to Mars, crashed into our Earth. At the same time, we were very lucky that this collision was not head-on, but tangential. The crap that flew into our bumper, of course, fell apart, but tore out a considerable piece of our bark with a mantle. And this torn piece, mixed with fragments of crap, hung in near-Earth orbit and gradually began to gather into a future satellite. And at the same time with the satellite, the Earth also received the seasons - since it squinted badly from such a blow.
In general, in those troubled times there was no order in the solar system. Constantly something heavy flew out of orbit and hit the neighbors. Among others, the young Moon was also hit hard. This happened according to the following algorithm. Some next space ingot crashes into the moon. At the point of impact - a huge dent and torn young bark (and then it was quite thin). Lava splashes from the fault and spills into a giant even puddle. Over time, everything freezes - and this is how a rounded "sea" is obtained - with a basalt surface that is dark in itself. Then everything repeats.
It is interesting that the sites of these impacts with solidified lava are a thing much denser than the usual surface of the Moon. Several such "puddles" side by side led to the fact that the center of mass was strongly warped inside our satellite. Slowly and with a creak, the Moon turned its heavier part towards the Earth - and so it remained forever. Actually, why do we see the Moon only from one side - with the seas. There are almost no seas on the reverse side, only small craters.
Moreover, in the main lunar seas there are gravitational anomalies (they are also mascons, from mass concentration). Nuts with bandages in them fall differently. The Americans discovered them in 1968, when they were preparing to launch the first lunar expedition. They launch people, but they cannot explain why their lunar satellite behaves like plywood over Paris. But in the end, everything, of course, was localized and calculated correctly.
Well, let's see what's over the seas specifically. There are few main seas and they are easy to remember.
Everything that is gray and shapeless on the left side is the Ocean of Storms. This is the largest lava spill on the Moon. It is interesting that there are no gravitational anomalies in it - which means that space pigs did not hit him with all the dope. And, most likely, it just leaked from neighboring dents.
The Sea of Rains is the most terrible scar on the face of the Moon. According to some reports, this point was hit several times - by asteroids or even by the nucleus of a comet. The first time - almost 3.8 billion years ago. Lava poured from there in several splashes - that's just enough for the Ocean of Storms. "Mosquito baldness" in the Sea of Rains is notable, and exactly opposite - on the far side of the Moon - Van der Graaff crater bulged out with a shock wave.
Now, somewhere in the Sea of Rains, the Chinese Jade Hare (lunar rover Yutu), which has already skated its winter of 2013-2014 and now fell into its last sleep, snores briefly to the delight of earthly radio amateurs about once every couple of months.
Seas of Clarity - also of impact origin and also with a mascon, almost as good as the previous one. These are the two most powerful dents of all the moons.
Somewhere in the east of this sea, the legendary Soviet "Lunokhod-2" froze. He unsuccessfully dug into the system of nested craters, covered himself with lunar dust and got stuck. But on the other hand, I honestly crawled along this sea for four whole months in 1973
But in the Sea of Tranquility, there are no gravitational anomalies. It's not percussive. Presumably leaked from the Sea of Clarity.
It is famous for the fact that in the summer of 1969 the American Apollo 11 landed there, the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, came out of it and said his signature phrase about a small step and a giant leap.
Further in this system, one more unstressed sea is visible - Abundance. Little can be said about him, his story is rather strange. It seems that the lowlands have been there since very ancient times, but the lava flowed a billion years later. From where is not very clear. This sea is known for the fact that in 1970 the Soviet "Luna-16" scooped up soil there and delivered it to Earth. Here we have abundance.
To the north and south of the Sea of Plenty are two more seas - honest and frank dents with quite clear gravitational anomalies. A little lower I will give once again a map of the seas with the imposition of all the mascons - it will become clearer where everything is. To the north is the Sea of Crises, to the south is the Sea of Nectar.
In general, these names are still the fruit of the imagination of intricate Italians. However, I do not know how to explain the fact that two of our lunar stations crashed and crashed in the Sea of Crises. Our third station, I must say, successfully bit the ground there and returned home. And no one else climbed there from the Earth. And for nectar - they never tried it at all.
The Sea of Nectar is one of the very first seas of the Moon. It was formed seventy million years before the Sea of Rains.
And there are only three large lunar seas left - they are located in a triangle to the south-west of the center of the lunar disk - the Sea of Clouds, Humidity and the Known (emphasis on "a").
The Seas of Clouds and the Known are non-shock and are included in the general system of the Ocean of Storms. The Sea of Humidity is located a little on the outskirts and has its own sickly mascon.
The Sea of Clouds is interesting in that it was formed quite late, and there were many craters in that place before. When the main threshing machine named after the Sea of Rains went with the pouring of lava over all the lowlands, this area was flooded along with ancient craters. But they remained there until now, the very edges are in the form of numerous ring low hills. You can see them, of course, in a normal telescope, a digital camera will not show this.
In addition, there is one interesting object in the Sea of Clouds - the Straight Wall. This is a break in the lunar crust in the form of a height difference on flat terrain. It goes almost in a straight line for 120 kilometers, the height is about 300 meters.
In September 2013, a meteorite the size of a car flew into this sea and exploded beautifully. The Spanish astronomers who recorded this claim that this is the largest lunar meteorite ever seen by man. Maybe so - a lot of all sorts of garbage from the main asteroid belt, which is between Mars and Jupiter, is still scouring the Moon. At various times, many observers describe some exciting and mysterious "sparks" on the surface of the moon - and so this is it.
Mascon Sea of Humidity is considered ideal for exploring. Throughout 2012, two NASA probes flew around the Moon, were engaged in specific gravimetry (the GRAIL program) - they made a more or less clear map of all the gravitational anomalies of the Moon. As for the origin and history, nothing is known there - there are no samples from there.
But the name of the last sea from our list - the Known - appeared in 1964. These are no longer Italians, but the International Space Committee. It was named so because there were most of all successful launches for all lunar programs and deliveries of soil samples.
As promised, here is a map of the lunar seas with an overlay of the Mascon map. Bruising bruised.
A natural question arises: why did the Moon suffer so much? And in what strange mystical way is she all beaten up, and the Earth is whole and beautiful? Was Luna hired to work part-time as a space shield?
Far from it. The moon is no shield for our planet. And the space debris flying at both of us is more or less evenly distributed over us. Maybe even more into the Earth - it is larger.
The moon just doesn't know how to heal wounds. For four and a half billion years of its history, it has retained the traces of almost all the blows that were inflicted on it from space. She has nothing to heal them with - she has no atmosphere and no water, so that there is erosion and smoothing; there is no vegetation to close faults and craters. The only thing that affects the Moon is solar radiation. Thanks to her, the light scars of impact craters darken over the centuries - but that's all. The soil of the Moon is everywhere - regolith. This is basalt rock ground into powder with an unthinkably long threshing machine (Neil Armstrong once noticed that regolith smells of burning and shot caps).
And the Earth, everything that hits it, immediately tightens and overgrows. Compared to the moon - lightning fast. Small pits disappear without a trace, while large impact craters are preserved, but they are strongly drained and overgrown. There are enough of them on our planet.
But here we come to the topic of impact craters of the Moon, and we need to pause.
