"Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Mare Cognitum, Mare Nubium, and Bullialdus"
This photo shows areas of the Moon targeted by Apollo Missions, including most of Mare Cognitum and the Fra Mauro Formation, as well as northern portions of Mare Nubium. It lies south of my previously posted photo of Copernicus Crater, connecting with that previous image in the region around Reinhold crater, seen here in the extreme upper left corner. It also joins nicely with a yet-to-be-posted image covering more of Mare Nubium 😊.
I have wanted to image more of the Apollo landing sites, and these are two that I have hitherto missed. Let’s start with Apollo 12. The Apollo 12 landing site, marked here with a red plus sign, was selected as a priority landing site by NASA in large part for the opportunity it presented for demonstrating the ability to land precisely at a chosen location. The target for Apollo 12 was the site where the Surveyor 3 spacecraft landed, in the northern part of Mare Cognitum. Commander Pete Conrad, Jr. brought the lander down 600 feet from Surveyor 3, closer than planned, close enough that the lander’s exhaust blasted the Surveyor 3 craft, cleaning portions it of a layer of accumulated dust. This success marks the only time that humans have visited the site of a previous landing on another heavenly body. It cleared the Apollo program for a series of targeted landings in difficult landing areas having scientific significance. Apollo 12 found the rocks at its site differed chemically from those found at the Apollo 11 site, showing that different geological processes shaped the history of the two regions. Further, as the Apollo 12 site lies within a ray of material ejected from Copernicus Crater, it was possible to learn some things of the geological history of Copernicus, including its possible 800 million year age (although this is still a matter of dispute). This site also saw the first installation of a science package designed to measure lunar seismicity, solar wind, lunar magnetism, and other subjects. These instrument packages, installed by each subsequent Apollo Landing Mission, provided data until 1977.
Incidentally, Mare Cognitum was officially named as a distinct area within Mare Procellarum in 1964. This was when NASA was planning the successful impact probe mission, Ranger 7, the first American spacecraft to return closeup images of the Moon's surface. The name, “Mare Cognitum”, means “the Sea that has Become Known”. Apollo 12 landed in a northern portion of Mare Cognitum. The circular basin below the Apollo 12 site and filling the left center of this photo is also part of Mare Cognitum. Ranger 7 crashed into the eastern side of this circular part of Mare Cognitum on July 31, 1964.
The green plus sign in upper center marks the landing site of Apollo 14. The hilly region which surrounds the site is known as the Fra Mauro Region. Fra Mauro Crater is the large circular basin immediately below and right of the marked landing site. A crack, or rima, cuts across its floor. It abuts two smaller craters, Bonpland on the left and Parry on the right. Together, the three craters form an upside-down Micky Mouse shape that is a convenient visual landmark when viewing the Moon.
This area was selected for an Apollo landing because it was thought to be formed of ejecta from the Mare Imbrium impact event, and thus a source for evidence that could help unravel the geologic history of the moon. In fact, this evidence it was considered so important that it had been assigned to the Apollo 13 mission; when the Apollo 13 landing was aborted, Apollo 14 was retasked to this mission. The material that comprises Fra Mauro Region was known to be widely distributed across the nearside of the Moon, so it serves as a convenient stratigraphic marker, dividing features that are older than the Imbrium impact from those that are younger. By returning samples of the Fra Mauro Formation for study on Earth, a precise age could be assigned to this geologic transition. Age-dating the samples in terrestrial laboratories indicated that the Imbrium basin formed approximately 3.85 billion years ago. Nearly all of the Apollo 14 samples are breccias, rocks formed from pieces of other rocks, often held together by an impact-melt matrix. Surprisingly, one rock was found that almost certainly originated here on Earth, with composition and chemistry that is unlike those of lunar materials. It probably arrived on the Moon as a meteorite, blasted away from the Earth in some long-ago meteor impact to the Earth. Similar bits of Earth may be scattered across the lunar landscape.
Two final comments. At the bottom center of the photo, amidst the lava plains of Mare Nubium (“Sea of Clouds”) is a very distinct crater. This is Bullialdus. Bullialdus is a lunar impact crater located in the western part of the Mare Nubium. The relatively isolated location of this crater serves to highlight its well-formed shape. Bullialdus has a high outer rim that is circular. The inner walls are terraced and contain many signs of landslips. The outer ramparts are covered in a wide ejecta blanket that highlights a radial pattern of low ridges and valleys.In the center of the crater is a formation of several peaks and rises that climb to over a kilometer in height.
The name of Mare Nubium, derives from early telescopic observations. The mare’s numerous ghost features, and various higher-albedo crater ejecta criss-crossing the basin, conjured up the idea of lunar clouds. Scan the area around Bullialdus and note how many partially flooded, or “ghost” craters can be seen. Bullialdus is clearly different from its neighbors.
Instrumentation:
Celestron EdgeHD 8 telescope, ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera, Celestron Advanced VX mount.
Processing:
Pre-processing of 4926 frame .ser file with PIPP. Best 5% of those video frames stacked with AutoStakkert!3, wavelets processing with Registax 6, and final processing in Photoshop CC 2020.
"Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Mare Cognitum, Mare Nubium, and Bullialdus"
This photo shows areas of the Moon targeted by Apollo Missions, including most of Mare Cognitum and the Fra Mauro Formation, as well as northern portions of Mare Nubium. It lies south of my previously posted photo of Copernicus Crater, connecting with that previous image in the region around Reinhold crater, seen here in the extreme upper left corner. It also joins nicely with a yet-to-be-posted image covering more of Mare Nubium 😊.
I have wanted to image more of the Apollo landing sites, and these are two that I have hitherto missed. Let’s start with Apollo 12. The Apollo 12 landing site, marked here with a red plus sign, was selected as a priority landing site by NASA in large part for the opportunity it presented for demonstrating the ability to land precisely at a chosen location. The target for Apollo 12 was the site where the Surveyor 3 spacecraft landed, in the northern part of Mare Cognitum. Commander Pete Conrad, Jr. brought the lander down 600 feet from Surveyor 3, closer than planned, close enough that the lander’s exhaust blasted the Surveyor 3 craft, cleaning portions it of a layer of accumulated dust. This success marks the only time that humans have visited the site of a previous landing on another heavenly body. It cleared the Apollo program for a series of targeted landings in difficult landing areas having scientific significance. Apollo 12 found the rocks at its site differed chemically from those found at the Apollo 11 site, showing that different geological processes shaped the history of the two regions. Further, as the Apollo 12 site lies within a ray of material ejected from Copernicus Crater, it was possible to learn some things of the geological history of Copernicus, including its possible 800 million year age (although this is still a matter of dispute). This site also saw the first installation of a science package designed to measure lunar seismicity, solar wind, lunar magnetism, and other subjects. These instrument packages, installed by each subsequent Apollo Landing Mission, provided data until 1977.
Incidentally, Mare Cognitum was officially named as a distinct area within Mare Procellarum in 1964. This was when NASA was planning the successful impact probe mission, Ranger 7, the first American spacecraft to return closeup images of the Moon's surface. The name, “Mare Cognitum”, means “the Sea that has Become Known”. Apollo 12 landed in a northern portion of Mare Cognitum. The circular basin below the Apollo 12 site and filling the left center of this photo is also part of Mare Cognitum. Ranger 7 crashed into the eastern side of this circular part of Mare Cognitum on July 31, 1964.
The green plus sign in upper center marks the landing site of Apollo 14. The hilly region which surrounds the site is known as the Fra Mauro Region. Fra Mauro Crater is the large circular basin immediately below and right of the marked landing site. A crack, or rima, cuts across its floor. It abuts two smaller craters, Bonpland on the left and Parry on the right. Together, the three craters form an upside-down Micky Mouse shape that is a convenient visual landmark when viewing the Moon.
This area was selected for an Apollo landing because it was thought to be formed of ejecta from the Mare Imbrium impact event, and thus a source for evidence that could help unravel the geologic history of the moon. In fact, this evidence it was considered so important that it had been assigned to the Apollo 13 mission; when the Apollo 13 landing was aborted, Apollo 14 was retasked to this mission. The material that comprises Fra Mauro Region was known to be widely distributed across the nearside of the Moon, so it serves as a convenient stratigraphic marker, dividing features that are older than the Imbrium impact from those that are younger. By returning samples of the Fra Mauro Formation for study on Earth, a precise age could be assigned to this geologic transition. Age-dating the samples in terrestrial laboratories indicated that the Imbrium basin formed approximately 3.85 billion years ago. Nearly all of the Apollo 14 samples are breccias, rocks formed from pieces of other rocks, often held together by an impact-melt matrix. Surprisingly, one rock was found that almost certainly originated here on Earth, with composition and chemistry that is unlike those of lunar materials. It probably arrived on the Moon as a meteorite, blasted away from the Earth in some long-ago meteor impact to the Earth. Similar bits of Earth may be scattered across the lunar landscape.
Two final comments. At the bottom center of the photo, amidst the lava plains of Mare Nubium (“Sea of Clouds”) is a very distinct crater. This is Bullialdus. Bullialdus is a lunar impact crater located in the western part of the Mare Nubium. The relatively isolated location of this crater serves to highlight its well-formed shape. Bullialdus has a high outer rim that is circular. The inner walls are terraced and contain many signs of landslips. The outer ramparts are covered in a wide ejecta blanket that highlights a radial pattern of low ridges and valleys.In the center of the crater is a formation of several peaks and rises that climb to over a kilometer in height.
The name of Mare Nubium, derives from early telescopic observations. The mare’s numerous ghost features, and various higher-albedo crater ejecta criss-crossing the basin, conjured up the idea of lunar clouds. Scan the area around Bullialdus and note how many partially flooded, or “ghost” craters can be seen. Bullialdus is clearly different from its neighbors.
Instrumentation:
Celestron EdgeHD 8 telescope, ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera, Celestron Advanced VX mount.
Processing:
Pre-processing of 4926 frame .ser file with PIPP. Best 5% of those video frames stacked with AutoStakkert!3, wavelets processing with Registax 6, and final processing in Photoshop CC 2020.