August 22, 2014

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Update From Hell

LPOD-Aug22-14.jpg
image by Alejandro Sanz, Ayllón, Spain

A nondescript part of the Moon, like so many other places. And like all of those places there is a range of time and processes displayed. The youngest features are the few small craters half-blackened by their western rim shadows, and the clumps of small secondary craters from nearby Tycho. Everything else is older and beaten down in various ways. Ball, at lower left, still has a mostly continuous rim, but its wall terraces have all slumped together so you could slide down to the floor with only a few bumps along the way. At upper left Hell also has a continuous rim - evidence of some youthfulness - but it is not circular. Its east-west elongation almost looks like two overlapping craters, but I think is just due to massive collapses of the west wall that moved it further out. A close look under high Sun reveals dark patches along the moat area between the wall and the central mountain of Hell. And a closer LRO-NAC view shows a few dark halo impact craters, including some very small ones with downslope trails of dark material. If this is mare basalt that has been excavated, it implies that mare lavas exist below Hell, which, surprisingly, is about one kilometer deeper than the floor of Deslandres. However, old mare lavas do crop out on the northeast floor of Deslandres, just outside this image. The possibility of mare material related to Deslandres is consistent with the speculation that it is a small impact basin.

Chuck Wood

Technical Details
17th August 2014 at 04:10 U.T. C11 - f/30 - DMK31

Related Links
21st Century Atlas chart 16.
Alex's website

Yesterday's LPOD: Blocks of Rocks

Tomorrow's LPOD: ABF and Other Stuff



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