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Nyidawa

Oceanus Procellarum

Location: ·

The only lunar mare called an ocean, and the largest by a wide margin.

Type
Mare
Diameter
2,592 km
Position
20.7°N 56.7°W
Name approved
1935

The Ocean of Storms sprawls 2,592 km across the western near side, covering roughly four million square kilometres — more than any other mare, and large enough to be obvious to the naked eye as the dark western half of the Moon.

Unlike Imbrium it sits in no clean basin. Its irregular outline and the absence of a defining ring have kept its origin contested: an ancient, heavily degraded mega-basin, or a region where a hot interior simply produced more volcanism than elsewhere. GRAIL gravity data revealed a rectangular pattern of rifts beneath it, which argues for the second explanation.

Surveyor 1, Luna 9 and Apollo 12 all landed here.

Sunrise

12 hours after sunrise on Oceanus Procellarum

Sunset

12 hours before sunset on Oceanus Procellarum

Sunrise and sunset on Oceanus Procellarum

EventTimeLit
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.

Further info

Official record from the IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Oceanus Procellarum

Wikipedia: Oceanus Procellarum