Hokusai Quadrangle Is Fifth of 15 Quadrangles of Mercurian Surface

Summary: Hokusai Quadrangle is the fifth of 15 quadrangles of the Mercurian surface and covers northern midlatitudes longitudinally from 270 to 360 degrees.

Brightly haloed Hokusai Crater's extensive rays dominate and extend beyond northern Mercury's Hokusai Quadrangle: approximate color representation combines three images acquired by MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (EW0131772418F, EW0131772423G, EW0131772431I) obtained by MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (WAC) during second flyby, Oct. 6, 2008; PILOT (Planetary Image Locator Tool), USGS Astrogeology Science Center: James Stuby (Jstudy), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hokusai Quadrangle is the fifth of 15 quadrangles of the Mercurian surface, and its map covers the Swift Planet's low and middle latitudes of 21 to 66 degrees north latitude, from 270 to 360 degrees west longitude.

As the fifth of Mercury's 15 quadrangles, Hokusai Quadrangle has the letter-number designation of H-5 or H05. H signifies Hermes, Greek mythology's Olympian deity who equates to Roman mythology's Mercurius.

Hokusai Quadrangle's provisional name, Apollonia, designates an albedo feature on Mercury's surface. Greek French astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi (March 1, 1870-Feb. 10, 1944) placed Apollonia north of 60 degrees north latitude on the map of Mercury's albedo features in his guide, La Planète Mercure, published in 1934 and translated into English by English amateur astronomer Sir Patrick Moore (March 4, 1923-Dec. 9, 2012) in 1974 (figure 5, page 26).

Mercury's quadrangles conventionally receive their names from prominent features. Hokusai Quadrangle's namesake is Hokusai Crater. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has themed Mercury's craters around historically significant artists, authors, musicians and painters, according to the IAU's U.S.G.S. (U.S. Geological Survey) Astrogeology Science Center-maintained, online Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. Hokusai Crater 's name, which received IAU approval on Mar 3, 2010, honors Japanese Edo period artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker Katsushita Hokusai (Oct. 31, 1760-May 10, 1849).

Hokusai Crater is centered at 57.84 degrees north latitude, 343.35 degrees west longitude, according to the IAU's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The northern middle latitude crater obtains northernmost and southernmost latitudes of 59 degrees north and 56.67 degrees north, respectively. It finds its easternmost and westernmost longitudes at 341.25 degrees west and 345.46 degrees west, respectively. Hokusai Crater's diameter measures 114 kilometers.

Hokusai Crater was discovered through ground-based radar observations conducted in 1991 at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (GDSCC), known as Goldstone Observatory, located in the Mojave Desert near Barstow in southeastern California's San Bernardino County. Prior to its official name, Hokusai Crater was identified as feature B. Radar astronomer John K. Harmon and five co-authors described feature B as a very brightly haloed, yet less distinctively rayed crater in their article on non-polar region radar imaging of Mercury in the April 2007 issue of Icarus. The reseachers rated feature B as one of "three of the most prominent crater features" studied via the S-band radar telescope at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory, also known as National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), located Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, northern coastal Puerto Rico.

Prior to NASA's MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) mission, Hokusai Crater was viewed only via Earth-based radar images. The MESSENGER robotic space probe's second flyby, Oct. 6, 2008, yielded the first spacecraft-obtained images of the brightly haloed crater. The NASA-owned Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) online Photojournal post of Oct. 7, 2008, "Mercury As Never Seen Before," noted that the young crater's "extensive ray system" radiated across Mercury's northern region and extended southward across the equator. Photojournal's Oct. 9, 2008, post, "Looking Back to the Source," observed: "The amazing extent of this large ray system is visible for the first time in MESSENGER’s newly acquired images."

Hokusai Crater occurs in Hokusai Quadrangle's northwestern corner. Its location places the impact crater in Borealis Planitia ("Northern Plain"). Although centered in Hokusai Quadrangle's northern neighbor, Borealis Quadrangle, Borealis Planitia intrudes into much of northern Hokusai Quadrangle.

Borealis Planitia received name approval in 1976. The northern hemisphere plain joins Caloris Planitia (Hot Plain) as the two exceptions to the IAU convention of theming Mercury's plains (Latin: planitiae) with names of Mercury, as god or planet, in various languages.

Borealis Planitia is centered at 67.3 degrees north latitude, 327.4 degrees west longitude. Its northernmost and southernmost latitudes extend to 86.9 degrees north and 29.5 degrees north, respectively. Its easternmost and westernmost longitudes reach 225.4 degrees west and 134.6 degrees west, respectively. Borealis Planitia's diameter spans 3,450 kilometers.

Hokusai Quadrangle's reach to 66 degrees north latitude establishes Borealis Quadrant (H-1) as the quadrangle's only northern neighbor. Hokusai Quadrangle's coverage of low and middle latitudes of Mercury's northern hemisphere allows for a shared eastern border with Raditladi Quadrangle (H-4) and western contiguity with Victoria Quadrangle (H-1). Eminescu Quadrangle (H-9) briefly shares Hokusai Quadrangle's southeastern border while Derain Quadrangle (H-10) claims most of Hokusai Quadrangle's southern border.

Hokusai Quadrangle numbers among the six quadrangles unimaged by Mariner 10, the first spacecraft visitor to Mercury. Mariner 10 mission's three flybys (March 29, 1974; Sept. 21, 1974; March 16, 1975). The portion of Mercury's surface covered by Hokusai, Raditladi, Eminescu, Derain, Debussy and Neruda quadrangles was not illuminated during the Mariner 10 mission's three flybys (March 29, 1974; Sept. 21, 1974; March 16, 1975). NASA's MESSENGER robotic space probe revealed the previously unimaged hemisphere via its first flyby, Jan. 14, 2008.

The takeaways for Hokusai Quadrangle as the fifth of 15 quadrangles of the Mercurian surface are that the northern low through middle latitude quadrangle's name derives from the area's brightly haloed, extensively rayed Hokusai Crater; that Hokusai Crater honors Japanese Edo period artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker Tasushita Hokusai; that northern neighbor Borealis Quadrangle;s vast plain, Borealis Planitia (Northern Plain), extends into northern Hokusai Quadrangle; and that, in addition to Borealis Quadrangle, Hokusai Quadrangle shares its borders with eastern neighbor Raditladi Quadrangle, southern neighbors Eminescu and Derain quadrangles and western neighbor Victoria Quadrangle.

Some rays in Hokusai Crater's (foreground) famous extensive ray stem traverse over 1,000 miles of the Mercurian surface; MESSENGER image acquired via the robotic space probe's Mercury Dual Imaging System's (MDIS) high-incidence-angle base map; credit NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington; uploaded Sep. 27, 2013: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA Goddard Photo and Video), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Brightly haloed Hokusai Crater's extensive rays dominate and extend beyond northern Mercury's Hokusai Quadrangle: approximate color representation combines three images acquired by MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (EW0131772418F, EW0131772423G, EW0131772431I) obtained by MESSENGER Wide Angle Camera (WAC) during second flyby, Oct. 6, 2008; PILOT (Planetary Image Locator Tool), USGS Astrogeology Science Center: James Stuby (Jstudy), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mercury_MESSENGER_WAC_IGF_to_RGB.jpg

Some rays in Hokusai Crater's (foreground) famous extensive ray stem traverse over 1,000 miles of the Mercurian surface; MESSENGER image acquired via the robotic space probe's Mercury Dual Imaging System's (MDIS) high-incidence-angle base map; credit NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington; uploaded Sep. 27, 2013: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA Goddard Photo and Video), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/9967761663/; CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crater_Hokusai,_Mercury,_MESSENGER.jpg

For further information:

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Davies, Merton E.; Stephen E. Dwornik; Donald E. Gault; and Robert G. Strom. Atlas of Mercury. Special Publication SP-423. Prepared for the Office of Space Sciences. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1978.
Available @ https://history.nasa.gov/SP-423/

Denevi, Brett W., Carolyn M. Ernst; Louise M. Prockter; and Mark S. Robinson. "Chapter 6: The Geologic History of Mercury." Pages 144-175. In Sean C. Solomon; Larry R. Nittler; and Brian J. Anderson, eds., Mercury: The View After MESSENGER. Cambridge Planetary Science. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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Harmon, John K.; Martin A. Slade; Bryan J. Butler; James W. Head; Melissa S. Rice; and Donald B. Campbell. "Mercury: Radar Images of the Equatorial and Midlatitude Zones." Icarus, vol. 187, issue 2 (April 2007): 374–405. DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2006.09.026
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