Mare Serenitatis (Latin ''serēnitātis'', the "Sea of Serenity") is a lunar mare located to the east of

Mare Imbrium Mare Imbrium (Latin ''imbrium'', the "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains") is a vast lunar mare, lava plain within the Imbrium Basin on the Moon and is one of the larger craters in the Solar System. The Imbrium Basin formed from the collision ...

on 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 ...

. Its diameter is .

Geology

Mare Serenitatis is located within the Serenitatis basin, which is of the Nectarian

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

. The material surrounding the mare is of the Lower Imbrian epoch, while the mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The mare

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

covers a majority of the basin and overflows into Lacus Somniorum to the northeast. The most noticeable feature is the crater Posidonius on the northeast rim of the mare. The ring feature to the west of the mare is indistinct, except for Montes Haemus. Mare Serenitatis connects with Mare Tranquillitatis to the southeast and borders Mare Vaporum to the southwest. Mare Serenitatis is an example of a mascon, an anomalous gravitational region on the Moon. A mass concentration (mascon), or gravitational high, was identified in the center of Mare Serenitatis from Doppler tracking of the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1968. The mascon was confirmed and mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector and GRAIL. File:Serenitatis basin topo.jpg, Topographic map File:Serenitatis basin GRAIL gravity.jpg, Gravity map based on GRAIL

Names

Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Serenitatis was named by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. Previously, William Gilbert had cited it as within the Regio Magna Occidentalis ("Large Western Region") in his map of ''c''.1600.

Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...

had included it as part of the 'Homuncio' ('little man'), referring to a small humanoid figure that he could see among the maria; Gassendi also referred to it as 'Thersite' after Thersites, the ugliest warrior in the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

. Michael van Langren had labelled it the Mare Eugenianum ("Eugenia's Sea") in his 1645 map, in honour of Isabella Clara Eugenia, queen of the

Spanish Netherlands The Spanish Netherlands (; ; ; ) (historically in Spanish: , the name "Flanders" was used as a '' pars pro toto'') was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of t ...

. And Johannes Hevelius included it within Pontus Euxinus (after the classical name for the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

) in his 1647 map.

Exploration

Both Luna 21 and

Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the eleventh and final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, ...

landed near the eastern border of Mare Serenitatis, in the area of the Montes Taurus range. Apollo 17 landed specifically in the Taurus-Littrow valley, and Luna 21 landed in Le Monnier crater. SpaceIL's '' Beresheet'' lunar lander was planned to land in Mare Serenitatis, but crashed into the surface on 11 April 2019. Its final resting place was about 33°N, 19°E, near to the centre of the

mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equidae, equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more th ...

Views

Image:Mare Serenetatis AS17-M-0940-0947-0954.jpg, These are three views of Mare Serenitatis, taken by the mapping camera of the

mission in 1972, facing north-northeast from an average altitude of 107 km. At the right is the east margin of Mare Serenitatis, with the 95 km diameter crater Posidonius at the central horizon, the basalt-flooded Le Monnier crater to the south, the mare ridge (or wrinkle ridge) Dorsa Aldrovandi at center, Littrow crater at the right, and the landing site of Apollo 17 in the lower right corner in the Taurus–Littrow valley. In the center is the relatively small crater Bessel (16 km), and two prominent rays probably from the Tycho impact far to the south. At the left is the western margin of the mare, with the Caucasus Mountains at the central horizon, the

Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...

at left, and the Sulpicius Gallus Rilles at the lower right. The Sun elevation drops from 24 degrees at right to 5 degrees at left as the Command Module ''America'' orbited the Moon. Image:Mare Serenitatis AS17-150-23069.jpg, Some of the strongest tonal, color, and structural contrasts among mare materials occur in Mare Serenitatis. This color Apollo 17 image shows that the dark materials were emplaced before the lighter materials near the top.

In popular culture

*Mare Serenitatis forms one of the eyes for the Man in the Moon. *Mare Serenitatis is mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's 1951 short story " The Sentinel". *Most of the action in John Wyndham's 1933 short story "The Last Lunarians" takes place on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. *Mare Serentitatis borders the Authority Moon colony in Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel '' The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress''. *The most southern part of Mare Serenitatis is depicted on the cover of the album ''Apollo - Atmospheres and Soundtracks'' by Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Daniel Lanois (1982). The photograph on the cover is AS17-150-23069, made during the mission of

in December 1972. *''Mare Serenitatis'' is the name of a Frigate-type spaceship playable in ''Infinite Lagrange'', a game developed and published by NetEase Games. *In the animation '' Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal'', Mare Serenitatis is the location of Silver Millennium and the original Moon Castle.

References

External links

Mare Serenitatis at The Moon Wiki
* * * * {{Lunar maria Serenitatis Serenitatis Serenitatis