#mare nectaris

[without-ado]

Mare Nectaris of the Moon l Roger Hyman

[thepastisalreadywritten]

TOKYO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Japan launched its lunar exploration spacecraft on Thursday aboard a homegrown H-IIA rocket, hoping to become the world's fifth country to land on the moon early next year.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the rocket took off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as planned and successfully released the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM).

Unfavourable weather led to three postponements in a week last month.

Dubbed the "moon sniper," Japan aims to land SLIM within 100 metres of its target site on the lunar surface.

The $100-million mission is expected to start the landing by February after a long, fuel-efficient approach trajectory.

"The big objective of SLIM is to prove the high-accuracy landing ... to achieve 'landing where we want' on the lunar surface, rather than 'landing where we can'," JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa told a news conference.

The launch comes two weeks after India became the fourth nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon with its Chandrayaan-3 mission to the unexplored lunar south pole.

Around the same time, Russia's Luna-25 lander crashed while approaching the moon.

Two earlier lunar landing attempts by Japan failed in the last year.

JAXA lost contact with the OMOTENASHI lander and scrubbed an attempted landing in November.

The Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, made by Japanese startup ispace (9348.T), crashed in April as it attempted to descend to the lunar surface.

SLIM is set to touch down on the near side of the moon close to Mare Nectaris, a lunar sea that, viewed from Earth, appears as a dark spot.

Its primary goal is to test advanced optical and image processing technology.

After landing, the craft aims to analyse the composition of olivine rocks near the sites in search of clues about the origin of the moon. No lunar rover is loaded on SLIM.

Thursday's H-IIA rocket also carried the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) satellite, a joint project of JAXA, NASA and the European Space Agency.

The satellite aims to observe plasma winds flowing through the universe that scientists see as key to helping understand the evolution of stars and galaxies.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.T) manufactured the rocket and operated the launch, which marked the 47th H-IIA rocket Japan has launched since 2001, bringing the vehicle's success rate close to 98%.

JAXA had suspended the launch of H-IIA carrying SLIM for several months while it investigated the failure of its new medium-lift H3 rocket during its debut in March.

Japan's space missions have faced other recent setbacks, with the launch failure of the Epsilon small rocket in October 2022, followed by an engine explosion during a test in July.

The country aims to send an astronaut to the moon's surface in the latter half of the 2020s as part of NASA's Artemis programme.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japan-launches-rocket-carrying-moon-lander-slim-after-three-delays-2023-09-06/

Japan launches 'Moon Sniper' mission | AFP

7 September 2023

Japan's "Moon Sniper" mission blasted off Thursday as the country's space programme looks to bounce back from a string of recent mishaps, weeks after India's historic lunar triumph.

[jmonterol]

MARE NECTARIS /  MASCON

Mare Nectaris es un mar situado en la cara visible de nuestro satélite al sur de Mare Tranquilitatis. Es totalmente circular, con un diámetro de 350 km. El trío de cráteres son Teophylus, Cyrillus y Catherina.

En diversos lugares de la Luna, especialmente en la cara visible, podemos encontrar un Mascon (mass concentration), una anomalía gravitacional que consiste en una zona de alta densidad situada bajo la superficie, la mayoría producidas por impactos meteoríticos. En la imagen en falso color se puede apreciar la anomalía, gracias a la sonda GRAIL. 

Maksutov Cassegrain 127. Cámara QHY 5II M.

[quiltofstars]

Mare Nectaris (”The Sea of Nectar”), and three craters, from top to bottom, Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina // jp-brahic

Theophilus crater is named after Saint Theophilus I of Alexandria (bef. 384 to 412), the 23rd Pope of Alexandria who wrote a book about the lunar cycle.

Cyrillus crater is named after Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444), the 24th Pope of Alexandria who also wrote a book about the lunar cycle!

Catharina crater is named after Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 287-305) an early Christian martyr.

[quiltofstars]

Mare Nectaris, “The Sea of Nectar,” on January 20, 2022 // Luís Ramalho

[jmonterol]

MARE NECTARIS

La formación en primer plano, arriba de la imagen, es Mare Nectaris, de unos 350 km de diámetro y una edad de más de 3900 millones de años. El cráter a su lado es Fracastorius, de 124 km, cuya pared norte se ha borrado al derramarse la lava hacia el interior del mar. Cerca, hacia el sur, amanece sobre las cimas más elevadas de Rupes Altai.

El sur está a la izquierda.

Maksutov Cassegrain 127. Cámara QHY 5II M.

[jmonterol]

MARE NECTARIS Y ALREDEDORES.

Mare Nectaris es un mar ubicado en la parte suroccidental de nuestro satélite, de más de 300 km de diámetro. Es notoriamente llano y la lava alcanza un espesor de 1000 m. Ocupa el punto central de una enorme cuenca de impacto de 860 km de diámetro que se formó hace casi 4000 millones de años. En su interior destaca el pequeño cráter Rosse, de alto albedo, con 12 km de diámetro y 2,4 km de profundidad.

A su alrededor destacan numerosos accidentes dignos de verse detenidamente con el telescopio. Sobresalen en su cara oeste el trío de cráteres Theophylus, Cyrillus y Catherina, de norte a sur.

Pero sobre todo nos fijamos a la izquierda de la imagen en Rupes Altai, una escarpadura de 480 km de longitud que llega a alcanzar en algunos puntos los 3000 m de altura. Rupes Altai constituye los restos de la pared primigenia de la cuenca de impacto.

Maksutov Cassegrain 127. Cámara CCDQHY 5II M.

Procesado con EZPlanetary y Registax 6.

[archypiragkov]

Lunar Craters by Davide Simonetti Via Flickr: An experiment in stitching together a couple of shots made from stacked video frames rather than DSLR shots. In the middle of the image from top to bottom are Craters Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catharina with the smaller Crater Mädler to the east in Mare Nectaris. The shots were taken on September 8th in Sicily with the Mooon in First Quarter phase. Made from 2 x 1,000 frame videos captured with FireCapture and processed in PIPP, Registax, and Photoshop. Stitched in Microsoft ICE. Equipment: Celestron NexStar 127 SLT Alt-Az Mount ZWO ASI120 MC imaging camera x3 Barlow lens