Picard (crater)

Picard
Apollo 17 Mapping camera image
Coordinates 14°34′N 54°43′E / 14.57°N 54.72°E / 14.57; 54.72Coordinates: 14°34′N 54°43′E / 14.57°N 54.72°E / 14.57; 54.72
Diameter 23 km
Depth 2.4 km
Colongitude 306° at sunrise
Eponym Jean-Félix Picard

Picard is a lunar impact crater that lies in Mare Crisium. It is the biggest non-flooded crater of this mare, being slightly larger than Peirce to the north-northwest. To the west is the almost completely flooded crater Yerkes. To east of Picard is the tiny Curtis. Also to the southwest is the Greaves-Lick crater pair. About 35–40 km southeast is the wrinkle ridge known as Dorsum Termier.

Picard is a crater from the Eratosthenian period, which lasted from 3.2 to 1.1 billion years ago. Inside Picard is a series of terraces that seismologists have attributed to a collapse of the crater floor. It has a cluster of low hills at the bottom.[1]

Names

The crater is named after the 17th-century French astronomer and geodesist Jean Picard.[2] Johannes Hevelius mapped it as "Alopecia Insula".[3] The crater didn't appear in Giovanni Riccioli's 1651 map, and was left unnamed for a few centuries.

Satellite craters

Satellite craters of Picard

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Picard.[4] Between 100 and 120 km south are five of its six satellite craters, the other being Picard Y is more than 125 km east.

Oblique Lunar Orbiter 4 image
Oblique Apollo 15 Panoramic Camera image, facing south
Picard Coordinates Diameter, km
K 9°44′N 54°34′E / 9.73°N 54.56°E / 9.73; 54.56 (Picard K) 9
L 10°19′N 54°19′E / 10.32°N 54.31°E / 10.32; 54.31 (Picard L) 7
M 10°13′N 53°57′E / 10.21°N 53.95°E / 10.21; 53.95 (Picard M) 8
N 10°31′N 53°34′E / 10.52°N 53.57°E / 10.52; 53.57 (Picard N) 19
P 8°49′N 53°37′E / 8.82°N 53.62°E / 8.82; 53.62 (Picard P) 8
Y 13°11′N 60°16′E / 13.18°N 60.27°E / 13.18; 60.27 (Picard Y) 4

The following craters have been renamed by the IAU.

References

  1. ↑ Moore, Patrick (2001). On the Moon. Sterling Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-304-35469-4.
  2. ↑ "Picard (crater)". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
  3. ↑ Hevelius map of the Moon (1647)
  4. ↑ Bussey, B.; Spudis, P. (2004). The Clementine Atlas of the Moon. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81528-2.
  • LTO-62A1 Yerkes — L&PI topographic map
  • "Picard (crater)". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.
  • Map of the region
  • Part of Picard crater: photo by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with resolution 1,3 meters/pixel
  • "Picard Crater Impact Melt". lroc.sese.asu.edu. 2012-12-11. Archived from the original on 2014-12-12. Retrieved 2014-12-12.
  • "The Crater Picard: Strange Convergences". vgl.org. 1996-04-04. Archived from the original on 2007-10-25. Retrieved 2014-12-12.
  • Picard in The-Moon Wiki
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