Lacus Aestatis (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''aestātis'', "Summer Lake") consists of two relatively small patches of smooth, interconnected

lunar mare The lunar maria ( ; mare ) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by lava flowing into ancient impact basins. They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a result of their iron-rich composition, and hence appear dark to ...

, located near the western limb of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

in the southwestern highlands. It was originally called ''Mare Aestatis'' but was renamed at the 1970

IAU The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

convention. The selenographic

coordinate In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine and standardize the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The coordinates are ...

s of this feature are 15.0° S, 69.0° W, and it lies within a diameter of 90 km. The lake has a combined surface area in the order of 400 km². The northwestern part of this feature is located to the east-southeast of the crater Rocca, and is contained within the rim of the satellite crater Rocca A. The other part lies to the southeast of the first, and forms an elongated, irregular patch that extends generally in a north-south direction. The southern tip lies about one crater diameter to the northwest of the flooded crater Crüger. Crater counts of this feature yield an age of 3.50 Gyr for the basalt, placing its formation in the

Imbrian The Imbrian is a lunar geologic period divided into two epochs, the Early and Late. Early Imbrian In the lunar geologic timescale, the Early Imbrian epoch occurred from 3,850 million years ago to about 3,800 million years ago. It overlaps the en ...

era.

References

External links

NASA lunar Atlas
Aestatis, Lacus Aestatis {{moon-stub