Mare Cognitum

Origin

The basin material is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, while most of the basaltic mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch.

Exploration

The Ranger 7 lunar probe impacted Mare Cognitum at the conclusion of its picture-taking mission. Surveyor 3 and Apollo 12 landed near its northern shore. The outcrop of the Fra Mauro formation, where Apollo 14 landed, is also located near Mare Cognitum.

Statio Cognitum

On November 19, 1969, astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed Apollo 12's Lunar Module within walking distance of Surveyor 3, which had been on the Moon since 1967. Named "Statio Cognitum" the site's closeness to its intended target demonstrated NASA's capability of precise lunar landings. The location also provided a relatively smooth Mare surface and a proximity to the lunar equator, thus ensuring relative ease of access from the standpoint of fuel consumption.

Geologically, the astronauts noted the amount of glass contained in the regolith and present at the bottoms of shallow craters at the site, as well as lighter-colored regolith material that geologists later determined to be ejecta from Copernicus crater.

Overall, Statio Cognitum and the surrounding area appears to have a slightly more red coloration from lunar orbit than Tranquility Base (which geologists later found to be the result of less titanium in the Apollo 12 rocks) and to have fewer craters overall than Tranquility Base; because of this, geologists suspected the site chosen for Apollo 12 contained younger rocks than those of the Apollo 11 site, and this was confirmed by the samples returned by Apollo 12. These samples consisted of more basalts and fewer breccias than the Apollo 11 samples and the basalts are about 500 million years younger than those from Tranquility base, the latter of which geologists estimate to be about 3.6 to 3.8 billion years old. The differing ages of the basalts collected on Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 demonstrate that the volcanic activity that formed the lunar mare did not occur all at once across the lunar surface, but rather took place at different times at different locations.

References

References

1. {{GPN. 3670. Mare Cognitum
2. (2003). "Ages and stratigraphy of mare basalts in Oceanus Procellarum, Mare Nubium, Mare Cognitum, and Mare Insularum". Journal of Geophysical Research.
3. "Ranger 7". NASA's Solar System Exploration website.
4. [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19700025955/downloads/19700025955.pdf "Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report"], NASA Special Publication 235, 1970
5. "Pinpoint Landing on the Ocean of Storms". Arizona State University.
6. "Apollo 12 Landing Site Overview". Lunar and Planetary Institute.
7. (1970). "Preliminary Geologic Investigation of the Apollo 12 Landing Site". Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report.
8. "Apollo 12 Lunar Sample Overview". Lunar and Planetary Institute.