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Mare Tranquillitatis

Lunar mare

Field	Value
name	Mare Tranquillitatis
image	Mare Tranquillitatis.jpg
caption	The Sea of Tranquility of the Moon
eponym	Sea of Tranquility
coordinates
diameter	876 km

Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin for Sea of Tranquillity or Sea of Tranquility) is a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the Moon. It contains Tranquility Base, the first location on another celestial body to be visited by humans.

The mare material within the basin consists of basalt formed in the intermediate to young age group of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The surrounding mountains are thought to be of the Lower Imbrian epoch, but the actual basin is probably Pre-Nectarian. The basin has irregular margins and lacks a defined multiple-ringed structure. The irregular topography in and near this basin results from the intersection of the Tranquillitatis, Nectaris, Crisium, Fecunditatis, and Serenitatis basins with two throughgoing rings of the Procellarum basin. Palus Somni, on the northeastern rim of the mare, is filled with the basalt that spilled over from Tranquillitatis.

This mare has a slight bluish tint relative to the rest of the Moon and stands out quite well when color is processed and extracted from multiple photographs. The color is likely due to higher metal content in the basaltic soil or rocks.

Unlike many other maria, there is no mass concentration (mascon), or gravitational high, in the center of Mare Tranquillitatis. Mascons were identified in the center of other maria (such as Serenitatis or Imbrium) from Doppler tracking of the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1968. The gravity field was mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector and GRAIL, which unveiled an irregular pattern.

File:Tranquillitatis basin topo.jpg|Topographic map File:Tranquillitatis basin GRAIL gravity.jpg|Gravity map based on GRAIL

Naming

Mare Tranquillitatis was named in 1651 by astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli in their lunar map Almagestum novum.

Michael van Langren, in his Lumina Austriaca Philippica of 1645, used the name "Mare Belgicum".

Landings

On February 20, 1965, the Ranger 8 spacecraft was deliberately crashed into the Mare Tranquillitatis at after successfully transmitting 7,137 close-range photographs of the Moon in the final 23 minutes of its mission.{{cite web |access-date = July 31, 2013 |archive-date = September 15, 2019 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190915132854/https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1965-010A |url-status = dead

Surveyor 5 landed in Mare Tranquillitatis on September 11, 1967, after transmitting 19,118 images of the Moon, and was the fifth lunar lander of the uncrewed Surveyor program.

Apollo 11

Mare Tranquillitatis was the landing site for the first crewed landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. After astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made a soft landing in the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, Armstrong told flight controllers on Earth, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." The landing area at has been designated Statio Tranquillitatis after Armstrong's name for it, and three small craters to the north of the base have been named Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong in honor of the Apollo 11 crew.

Apollo 11 landed at .

Bays

Along the periphery of the mare are several bay-shaped features that have been given names: Sinus Amoris, Sinus Asperitatis, Sinus Concordiae, and Sinus Honoris.

Views

In popular culture

Sea of Tranquility, a 2022 book by Emily St. John Mandel

Gallery

File:Mare Tranquillitatis map.jpg|Map of the Sea of Tranquility, showing the landing sites of Apollo 11, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, and Surveyor 5. To the southeast is Mare Fecunditatis, to the northeast is Mare Crisium, to the northwest is Mare Serenitatis, and to the south is Mare Nectaris. File:AP11 FINAL APPROACH.ogv|Neil Armstrong lands the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle on the Moon at Mare Tranquillitatis, July 20, 1969, creating Tranquility Base. Starts approximately 6200 feet from the surface. File:Buzz salutes the U.S. Flag.jpg|Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on Mare Tranquillitatis during Apollo 11 in 1969. File:Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater.jpg|High Sun view of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater revealing boulders on an otherwise smooth floor. Image is 400 meters wide, north is up, NAC M126710873R. File:Aldrin Apollo 11 (jha).jpg|"A man on the Moon", the first photograph taken on the Moon, was taken on Mare Tranquillitatis.

References

"Selenocromatica".
{{gpn. 3691
"Mare Tranquillitatis". [[NASA]].
Filipe Alves. (July 2005). "Capturing the Colors of the Moon". Sky and Telescope.
P. M. Muller, W. L. Sjogren. (1968). "Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations". Science.
(1989). "The Face of the Moon". Linda Hall Library.
"Mare Tranquillitatis naming origin". Lunar Planetary Institute.
"NASA - NSSDCA - Spacecraft - Details".
"NASA - NSSDCA - Spacecraft - Details".
(April 19, 2013). "How to See Where Astronauts Walked on the Moon". Space.com.
"Apollo 11 Landing Site". Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
"Apollo Landing Site Coordinates".
Wood, Chuck. (2006-08-10). "Is it Love or a Sinus Infection?". Lunar Photo of the Day.
Garrett, Yvonne C.. (April 2022). "Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility". [[The Brooklyn Rail]].

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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