Alphonsus
Location: ·
Ranger 9 crashed onto its floor live on television in 1965 — dark ash patches mark ancient volcanic vents.
Dark-halo craters sit along the rilles on the floor of Alphonsus. They are volcanic vents, not impacts: each is ringed by pyroclastic material erupted along the fracture beneath it, and they are among the clearest endogenic features on the near side.
Nikolai Kozyrev reported a spectrogram of gas emission from the central peak in 1958, which is part of why the crater was targeted. Ranger 9 was aimed into it in 1965 and returned images down to about 0.3 m resolution before impact - the last of the Ranger series and the first transmitted live to television.
Sunrise
Sunset
Sunrise and sunset on Alphonsus
| Event | Time | Lit |
|---|---|---|
| Computing… | ||
- Sunrise / Sunset: at the feature's centre (IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature).
- Lit: the illuminated fraction of the Moon's disc at that moment.
Named after
Alfonso X of Castile, called the Wise, patron of the Alfonsine Tables (1221–1284).
Further info
Official record from the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Alphonsus
Wikipedia: Alphonsus (crater)