Moon seas on the Moon have nothing to do with what we understand the word "sea" means, they are waterless. So what are the seas on the moon? Who gave them such interesting names? The lunar seas are dark, even and rather large areas of the lunar surface visible to us from the Earth, a kind of pits.
The seas on the moon - what kind of phenomenon?
Medieval astronomers, who first saw these areas on the Moon, suggested that they are just seas filled with water. In the future, these areas were called quite romantically: the Sea of Tranquility, the Sea of Abundance, the Sea of Rains, etc. As it turned out in reality, the lunar seas and oceans are lowlands, plains. They were formed by flows of solidified lava, pouring out of the crevices of the lunar crust, which appeared as a result of its attack by meteorites. Due to the fact that the solidified lava has a darker color than the rest of the surface of the Moon, the lunar seas are visible from Earth in the form of extensive dark spots.
Ocean of Storms
The largest lunar sea bearingthe name of the Ocean of Storms, has a length of more than 2,000 kilometers, and in total, amazing depressions occupy about 16% of the satellite's surface. This is the most extensive lava spill on the Moon. It is unusual that there are no gravitational anomalies in it, that is, it suggests itself that cosmic impacts did not fall on it. And maybe the lava just flowed from the neighboring dents.
Further clockwise we see three well-visible rounded seas - Rains, Clarity and Tranquility. All copyrights to these titles belong to Riccioli and Grimaldi, supposedly people with a very difficult character.
Features of the Sea of Rains
The Moon Sea of Rains is the worst scar on the face of the Moon. According to some known data, this point was hit more than once: by asteroids and even, it is quite likely that by the nucleus of the comet itself. The first time was about 3.8 billion years ago. Lava poured out from there in several splashes, which were enough to form an ocean of Storms. "Mosquito baldness" in the Sea of Rains is rather immodest, but just opposite, on the reverse side of the lunar surface, Van der Graaff crater bulged out with a shock wave. At this point in time, somewhere in the Sea of Rains, the Chinese Jade Hare (lunar rover Yutu) has gone into the unmanifest, which has already completed its mission in the winter of 2013-2014 and now fell into its last sleep, occasionally, once every few months, modestly snoring to the delight of earthly radio amateurs.
Sea of Clarity
It has a shock origin and also with a mascon, almost as good asthe previous one. Of all the lunar dents, these are the two most powerful. In the eastern part of this sea, the legendary Soviet Lunokhod-2 froze. He unsuccessfully drowned in a system of nested craters, after which he was covered with lunar dust and stuck. But, in spite of everything, he selflessly crawled along this sea for four whole months in 1973. But in the Sea of Tranquility, there are no gravitational anomalies. It does not have a percussive origin. Presumably, its formation is a consequence of the flow from the Sea of Clarity. Its fame is explained by the fact that in the summer of 1969 the American Apollo 11 landed there, from which the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, came out, who uttered the catchphrase about a small step and a giant leap.
Sea of Abundance
Next, our attention is presented to another unstressed lunar sea - Abundance. It has a small but rather strange origin story. It seems that the lowlands have been present there since very ancient times, but the lava flowed billions of years later. Where is unclear. This sea is known for the fact that in 1970 the Soviet "Luna-16" scooped up soil there and delivered it to Earth. That's "abundance" for you. To the north and south of the Sea of Plenty are two more seas - dents with quite clear gravitational anomalies. To the north is the Sea of Crises, to the south is the Sea of Nectar.
In general, these names are the fruit of the fantasies of intricate Italians. However, it is not clear how to explain the fact that two of our lunar stations crashed and crashed in the Sea of Crises. Our third station, it should be noted, successfullygot the soil there and returned home. And no one had more desire to appear there from the Earth. And for the "nectar" they never tried at all.
The Sea of Nectar is one of the very first seas of the Moon. He is predicted to be seventy million years older than the Sea of Rains. And there are only three large lunar seas left, they are located in a triangle southwest of the center of the lunar disk - these are the seas of Clouds, Humidity and the Known (emphasis on "a").
The Seas of Clouds and the Cognized are non-impact formations and are included in the general system of the Ocean of Storms. The Sea of Humidity is located somewhat on the outskirts and has its own very extensive mascon. The Sea of Clouds is of interest because it was formed much later in a place where there were many craters earlier. When lava poured over all the lowlands, this area was flooded along with ancient craters. But they are still visible to us, the very edges, in the form of numerous ring low hills. Of course, they are visible only in a normal telescope, pseudo-equipment will not show this. In addition to everything, there is one interesting object in the Sea of Clouds - the Straight Wall. It is a break in the lunar crust in the form of a vertical drop on a flat area, which runs in an almost straight line of 120 kilometers, its height is about 300 meters.
In September 2013, a meteorite the size of a car accidentally hit this sea, exploding spectacularly. Spanish astronomers, who recorded this event, claim that this is the largest lunar meteorite of all that it seemed to mankind to see. There is still a lot of garbage walking on the moon frommain asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. At various times, many observers talked about some exciting and mysterious "sparks" on the surface of the Moon - that's exactly what it is. The Moisture Sea Mascon is ideal for exploring. Throughout 2012, two NASA probes flew around the Moon, engaged in specific gravimetry (the GRAIL program), thanks to which a more or less clear map of all the gravitational anomalies of the Moon was compiled, and photos of the lunar seas were also taken. But nothing is known about the origin and history of occurrence there, there are no samples from there.
But the name of the last sea from our list - Known - appeared in 1964. It is not the Italians who have tried, but the International Space Committee. It got its name because it gave a sufficient number of successful launches for all lunar programs and deliveries of soil samples.
Why don't the moon seas disappear?
A natural question arises: "Why did the Moon suffer so much? And why is it all beaten up in such a strange mystical way, and the Earth is unharmed and very beautiful?" Has Luna been hired to work part-time as some kind of space shield? Far from it. The moon is not a shield for our planet. And the space debris flying into both of them is more or less evenly distributed. And, most likely, even more into the Earth - it is larger. It's just that the Moon doesn't have the ability to heal wounds. For four and a half billion years of its history, it has retained the traces of almost all the blows that were inflicted on it from space. Nothing to heal them - noThe moon's atmosphere and no water to erode and flatten; there is no vegetation to close faults and craters. The only effect on the moon is solar radiation. Thanks to her, the light scars of impact craters darken over the centuries, that's all. The soil of the Moon is everywhere - regolith. This is bas alt rock ground into a kind of powder with an unthinkably exhausting threshing machine (Neil Armstrong once said that regolith smells of burning and shot caps). And the Earth immediately tightens and overgrows all combat wounds. And compared to the moon, this happens quite lightning fast. Small pits disappear without a trace, and large impact craters, of course, leave their mark, but they strongly sink and overgrow. And there are enough such scars on our planet.
