This crater grouping on the southeastern side of the immense and deep Apollo basin has been preliminarily designated after the astronauts of Space Shuttle Columbia who perished during re-entry February 1, 2003. Though some in the group seem to be large secondary craters resulting from the same event, Husband (formerly designated "'Borman L") is far older than the rest. (For scale, Borman, named after Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8, is roughly 50 km from rim to rim [LROC WAC/PDS Interface/Arizona State University].
Keith Cowing, posting at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Program (LOIRP) website "Moonviews" reports a crater grouping in Apollo basin (35.7°S, 208.0°E) has been provisionally designated by the International Astronomical Union to honor of each of the seven astronauts who died on-board Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
Location of the Columbia crater grouping on the southeastern side of 537 km-wide Apollo basin on the Moon's farside, a large and deep impact that is itself situated on the northeastern edge of 4 billion year-old South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, the oldest known basin on the Moon. [LROC WAC/PDS Interface].
1 comments:
Wonderful! Very glad to see this, and pleased the IAU gave them such a permanent memorial =)
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