Mare Frigoris
 Mare Frigoris is the dark grey material in the lower portion of this photo | |
| Diameter | 1,446 km (899 mi)[1] |
|---|---|
| Eponym | Sea of Cold |
Mare Frigoris (the "Sea of Cold") is a lunar mare in the far north of the Moon. It is located in the outer rings of the Procellarum basin, just north of Mare Imbrium, and stretches east to north of Mare Serenitatis. It is just north of the dark crater Plato.
Geology
The basin material surrounding the mare is of the Lower Imbrian epoch, while the eastern mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch, and the western mare material is of the Eratosthenian epoch.[citation needed]
Names
Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Frigoris was named by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized.[2] Previously, William Gilbert had included it among the Insula Borealis ("Northern Island") in his map of c.1600[3], and Michael Van Langren had labelled it the Mare Astronomicum ("Sea of Astronomy") in his 1645 map.[4] Pierre Gassendi called it the Boreum Mare ('Northern Sea').[5]
In popular culture
This area of the Moon featured prominently in 'Behemoth', the second episode of the 1973 BBC science fiction mini-series Moonbase 3.
References
- ^ "Moon Mare/Maria". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology. Retrieved 2010-08-20.
- ^ Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.61.
- ^ Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.15
- ^ Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.41, 198.
- ^ Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 33.