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The ages of the mare basalts have been determined both by direct radiometric dating and by the technique of crater counting.The radiometric ages range from about 3.16 to 4.2 billion years old (Ga), [4] whereas the youngest ages determined from crater counting are about 1.2 Ga. [5] Updated measurements of samples collected by the Chang’e-5 mission show that some lunar basalts could be as ...
Lunar nearside with major maria and craters labeled. Lunar maria (singular mare) are large, dark, regions of the Moon.They do not contain any water, but are believed to have been formed from molten rock from the Moon's mantle coming out onto the surface of the Moon.
The modern system of lunar nomenclature was introduced in 1651 by Giovanni Battista Riccioli. [1] Riccioli's map of the Moon was drawn by Francesco Maria Grimaldi, who has a crater named after him. A related set of features are the Lunar lacus / ˈ l eɪ k ə s / (singular also lacus, Latin for "lake"), [a] which are smaller basaltic plains of ...
Mare Crisium / ˈ k r ɪ s i ə m / (Latin crisium, the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. Mare Crisium is a basin of Nectarian age. [2] It was formed by the flooding of basaltic lava that filled an ancient asteroid impact. [3]
This is a list of named lunar craters. The large majority of these features are impact craters . The crater nomenclature is governed by the International Astronomical Union , and this listing only includes features that are officially recognized by that scientific society.
The phrase "dark side of the Moon" does not refer to "dark" as in the absence of light, but rather "dark" as in unknown: until humans were able to send spacecraft around the Moon, this area had never been seen. [1] [2] [3] In reality, both the near and far sides receive (on average) almost equal amounts of light directly from the Sun.
The dark splotches that make up the large lunar maria are lava-filled impact basins that were created by asteroid impacts about four billion years ago. Though both sides of the Moon were bombarded by similarly large impactors, the near side hemisphere crust and upper mantle was hotter than that of the far side, resulting in the larger impact ...
On the Moon, permanent shadow can exist at latitudes as low as 58°; approximately 50 permanently shadowed regions exist in the 58°- 65° latitude range for both lunar hemispheres. [8] The cumulative area of permanently shadowed lunar regions is about 31 thousand km 2; more than half of it is in the southern hemisphere. [9]