What kind of crater is copernicus

The inner part of the crater walls are broken up into a series of terraces. Lunar Orbiter image VM. This north-looking oblique image illustrates the hummocky or uneven texture of much of the crater floor and the terraces and debris flows along the crater wall. Although this image was hailed as the "Photo of the Century" when it was returned in , a Apollo 17 photo of Copernicus proved even more spectacular. Lunar Orbiter image IIH3. Material ejected from a crater sometimes produces additional craters nearby, called secondary craters.

The overlapping chain of craters in this image is an example of such secondary craters. These craters are part of the crater chains shown in the center of the first Copernicus image. Lunar Orbiter image V- M. Apollo 17 view of Copernicus ejecta.

This image clearly shows both the central peak and terracing in the walls of Tycho. Tycho is in the lunar highlands, and the terrain surrounding the crater is quite rugged.

The crater floor is also fairly hummocky. Multispectral images obtained by the Clementine spacecraft show that the central peak has a different composition than the surrounding material, presumably because the central peak is composed of material that originated at greater depths in the Moon's crust.

The mountains, hills and plains that Galileo discovered in established for the very first time that the moon is a world of its own, completely shattering the long-held notion that it was a perfect crystal sphere. Your first glance through binoculars will reveal large dark areas, the so-called seas or maria the plural of mare , which in reality are flat lava plains.

When I was a young boy growing up in the Bronx, the one item in the celestial scene that attracted my immediate attention looking skyward was that ever-changing moon, with its varying phases, locations, times of rising and setting, and other more subtle aspects of its visibility. Now, nearly half a century later, I still find these things fun to observe. Look along the terminator tonight June 25 for a magnificent crater called Copernicus, named after the famed 16th-century Polish astronomer and theologian Nicolaus Copernicus.

This crater, which is about 58 miles 93 kilometers wide and 2. When Copernicus appears, as it will on Thursday aligned with the terminator, it becomes the most obvious of any lunar feature. At sunrise, and again two weeks later at sunset, Copernicus forms a vast lake of black shadow. Those long shadows led early observers to believe that many lunar mountains are extremely precipitous. Pioneers and Pioneer IV. A natural color composite mosaic of the Moon.

Lunar Surface in Color. Three images of Tycho crater and its central peak, located at 43 S, 11 W, on the Moon. Ranger 7 was the first U. This was one of more than 4, images sent back during the flyby.

Ranger 7: Moon Close Up. Astronaut David R. Scott, right, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, gets a close look at the sample referred to as "Genesis rock. Genesis Rock. First Photo from the Surface of the Moon. The six Apollo lunar landing sites are all relatively near the equator on the side of the Moon that faces the Earth. Apollo Landing Sites. Dynamic Moon! View of Astronaut David R. A spectacular oblique view of the rim of Shackleton crater near the south pole of the Moon.