Tycho crater is one of the relatively young ones on the moon
Tammy Plotner and Jeff Barber, Universe Today
Bottom image: Tycho Crater as photographed by the Surveyor 7 spacecraft. Photo: NASA
36 years ago today, in 1970, Lambda 4S-5, the first Japanese satellite, was launched.
Tonight the moon will continue to dominate the evening sky and there will be a special opportunity for those with binoculars and telescopes to discover Tycho Crater. The crater, named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe, is an impressive impact crater that can be viewed even with the help of light visual aids. The width of the crater is 85 kilometers, and it can be identified without mistakes in the southern hemisphere of the moon.
Its considerable horn systems support its origin as an impact crater. The rays cut across the surface of the moon at a distance of hundreds of kilometers. Tycho is also one of the youngest of the large craters on the Moon. Compared to the other craters that are estimated to be billions of years old, Tycho's is only 50 million years old.
On January 9, 1968, the unmanned spacecraft Surveyor 7 landed on the floor of Tycho Crater. While the previous Surveyor missions were only intended to provide the Apollo program with the data essential for a human mission, the Surveyor 7 mission was a purely scientific mission. Two weeks later, as the sun set over the sale site, Surveyor 7 demonstrated through 21 images, the physical and chemical properties of the high mountain regions in the Southern Hemisphere, and the robotic spacecraft detected laser pulses sent to it from Earth on two occasions.
Since the moon rules the night sky, we'll show you what effect it has on astronomical viewing. In the spirit of discovery, order in the Great Orion Nebula. Isn't that something impressive you will remember? However, while you are viewing M42, increase the power of the telescope and observe the four stars in the center. We will return to them.
