#sinus aestuum

[quiltofstars]

Copernicus (right) and Eratosthenes (left) craters on the Moon // OMC300

Click below to read about these craters (and a few others) as well as an annotated image!

Copernicus crater on the right is one of the larger craters on the Moon and is easily visible with some binoculars. This crater was named after none other than Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish astronomer who came up with the Sun-centered model of the solar system, popularized after his death.

Eratosthenes crater on the left is another large crater. It is older than nearby Copernicus. This crater is named after the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 BC) who is famous for calculating the circumference of the Earth to a very accurate degree!

Also here is Gay-Lussac crater, just below Copernicus. It is named after the French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) who discovered that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

Seen as a ghostly outline at the top is Stadius crater, an ancient crater that has been flooded with lava flows. It is named after the Flemish astronomer Johannes Stadius (c. 1527-1579) who published a table of planetary positions, called ephemerides.

Finally, these craters are bounded by the Mare Imbrium ("Sea of Showers") to the south and Sinus Aestuum ("Seething Bay") to the north.

[quiltofstars]

Eratosthenes crater (left) on the Moon // Paul Margolies

Click below to read about some of the other features and craters in this image!

The crater Eratosthenes is named after the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 - 194 BC) who is best known for being the first person to accurately calculate the Earth's circumference.

The crater Eratosthenes lies on the boundary between two lunar seas. To the right is Mare Imbrium, the "Sea of Showers." To the left is Sinus Aestuum, the "Seething Bay."

Other nearby craters include:

Wallace crater named after the English explorer Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), who independently came up with natural selection and explored the Amazon River.

Heinrich crater is named after Czechoslovak astronomer Vladimir Václav Heinrich (1884-1965) who worked on the three-body problem in Newtonian mechanics.

Timocharis crater is named after the Greek astronomer Timocharis of Alexandria (c. 320-260 BC). He was a contemporary of Euclid, and made early recordings of stellar and planetary positions.

Feuillée crater is named after the French geographer Louis Éconches Feuillée (1660-1732). He traveled to South America and made many flora and fauna unknown to Europeans.

Beer crater is named after the Prussian banker Wilhelm Wolff Beer (1797-1850) who produced the first exact map of the Moon.