Last Quarter Sunday, Nov. 8, Shows Apollo 14’s Mare Cognitum

Summary: The lunar last quarter Sunday, Nov. 8, shows Apollo 14’s Mare Cognitum as the right side of the Man in the Moon’s mouth for Northern Hemisphere viewers.

Oblique, north-looking view, photographed January 1971 from Apollo 16 Command Service Module Caspter, shows Apollo 14 landing site (white arrow; upper center), Fra Mauro Crater (center), Bonpland Crater (bottom center) and Parry Crater (lower right); American astronomers Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis describe the Mauro-Bonpland-Parry configuration as somewhat resembling Mickey Mouse’s face and ears “with the ears too close” (page 35) in their 2013 night sky guide, Turn Left at Orion; NASA image AS16-M-1420; H. Masursky et al., Apollo Over the Moon: A View From Orbit (1978), Chapter 3, figure 44, page 56: Public Domain, via NASA

The moon’s last quarter Sunday, Nov. 8, shows Apollo 14’s Mare Cognitum as the right side of the Man in Moon’s mouth for Northern Hemisphere moonwatchers.

The month’s last quarter phase begins Sunday, Nov. 8, at 13:46 Greenwich Mean Time/Coordinated Universal Time (8:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), according to retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak’s AstroPixels website. The last quarter succeeds the waning gibbous phase, which offers greater surface illumination of the moon’s near side as the intermediate phase between the full phase’s 100 percent illumination and the last quarter’s 50 percent illumination.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Apollo 14 mission safely landed Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (Nov. 18, 1923-July 21, 1998) and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell as the fifth and sixth persons to set foot on the moon. Apollo Lunar Module Antares touched down Friday, Feb. 5, 1971, at 09:18:11 Universal Time (4:18 a.m. EST), northeast of Mare Cognitum.

Mare Cognitum occupies the southwestern quadrant of the moon’s near side. It is centered at minus 10.53 degrees south latitude, minus 22.31 degrees west longitude, according to the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. As a southern hemisphere lava plain, Mare Cognitum’s northernmost and southernmost latitudes reach minus 5.9 degrees south and minus 13.92 degrees south, respectively. As a western hemisphere mare, the dark plain’s easternmost and westernmost longitudes extend to minus 16.45 degrees west and minus 28.1 degrees west, respectively. Mare Cognitum’s diameter measures 350.01 kilometers.

British lunar astronomer Ewen Adair Whitaker (June 22, 1922-Oct. 11, 2016) described Mare Cognitum as a “comparatively small, unnamed dark area . . . largely surrounded by bright hills” (page 51) in his 1985 history of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Whitaker credited Dutch-American planetary scientist and selenographer Gerard Peter Kuiper (Dec. 7, 1905-Dec. 23, 1973) with suggested names of Mare Cognitum (Sea That Has Become Known; Sea of Knowledge) or Mare Exploratum (Explored Sea) for the dark oval on Friday, Aug. 28, 1964, at the IAU’s XII General Assembly. Held in Hamburg, Germany, from Wednesday, Aug. 26, to Wednesday, Sept. 2, the Hamburg Congress approved Mare Cognitum.

Lunar Module Antares settled in the Fra Mauro Formation. Also known as the Fra Mauro Highlands, the formation comprises ejecta from the impact that formed the lunar northwestern quadrant’s Imbrium Basin. The Universities Space Research Association’s (USRA) Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) describes the landing site as “located in a broad, shallow valley between radial ridges of the Fra Mauro Formation and approximately 500 kilometers from the edge of the Imbrium Basin. The formation takes its name from the valley’s bowl-shaped Fra Mauro Crater.

Antares touched down about 30 miles (49.3 kilometers) north of the Fra Mauro Crater, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s website.

The Fra Mauro site had originally been targeted for the Apollo 14 mission’s predecessor, Apollo 13. Launched Saturday, April 11, 1970, from Florida’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, Apollo 13 suffered an oxygen tank explosion Tuesday, April 14, in the mission’s Command Service Module, Odyssey, halfway to the moon. The aborted mission ended with the safe return of the mission’s three astronauts, Commander James Arthur Lovell Jr. (born March 25, 1928), Command Module Pilot John “Jack” Leonard Swigert Jr. (Aug. 30, 1931-Dec. 27, 1982) and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Wallace Haise Jr. (born Nov. 14, 1933), to Earth on Friday, April 17.

Fra Mauro Crater is centered at minus 6.06 degrees south latitude, minus 16.97 degrees west longitude. The southern hemisphere crater’s northernmost and southernmost latitudes are recorded at minus 4.47 degrees south and minus 7.66 degrees south, respectively. As a western hemisphere crater, its easternmost and westernmost longitudes extend to minus 15.37 degrees west and minus 18.58 degrees west, respectively. Described by USRA LPI as “subdued and partially filled,” Fra Mauro Crater records a diameter of 96.76 kilometers.

Fra Mauro Crater’s namesake was 15th-century Venetian cartographer and monk Fra Mauro. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1935.

The takeaway for the last quarter’s Nov. 8 showing of Apollo 14’s Mare Cognitum is that the fifth and sixth humans to set foot on the moon landed northeast of the dark, oval lava plain that forms the right side of the Man in the Moon’s mouth for Northern Hemisphere moonwatchers.

LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) image of Apoll0 14 landing site shows Lunar Module Antares descent stage and, to the west, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP); paths between the two sites were left by astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell during the mission’s two extravehicular activities; LROC NAC M168319885LR; via NASA

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Oblique, north-looking view, photographed January 1971 from Apollo 16 Command Service Module Caspter, shows Apollo 14 landing site (white arrow; upper center), Fra Mauro Crater (center), Bonpland Crater (bottom center) and Parry Crater (lower right); American astronomers Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis describe the Mauro-Bonpland-Parry configuration as somewhat resembling Mickey Mouse’s face and ears “with the ears too close” (page 35) in their 2013 night sky guide, Turn Left at Orion; NASA image AS16-M-1420; H. Masursky et al., Apollo Over the Moon: A View From Orbit (1978), Chapter 3, figure 44, page 56: Public Domain, via NASA @ https://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-362/ch3.2.htm; via Apollo Image Archive @ https://apollo.sese.asu.edu/LIW/20090407.html

LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) image of Apoll0 14 landing site shows Lunar Module Antares descent stage and, to the west, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP); paths between the two sites were left by astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell during the mission’s two extravehicular activities; LROC NAC M168319885LR; via NASA @ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/lro-briefing-20110906.html

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