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Enlarged View of this gibbous moon:208 kilobytes 1400 x 1500 pixels 
The two large dark circular regions are the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Showers) on the left and the smaller Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) on the right. Archimedes Crater is at the center of the yellow square.
 Archimedes Crater and the locations of the Luna 2 and Apollo 15 landing sites. 
View of Archimedes Crater as seen from the Apollo 15 command module at a range of 140 kilometers.Enlarged View: 104 kilobytes 720 x 639 pixels |
The lunar crater Archimedes is 82 kilometers (50 miles) wide and is located at 29.7o North, 4.0o West. Its two smaller companion craters are Aristillus and Autolycus, named after two Greek astronomers of the third century BC. It is the largest crater inside the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Showers), which is outlined along the southeast by the Apennine Mountains. The crater floor is filled with smooth mare material and its ejecta blanket, which forms the Montes Archimedes, is below it. Several long fissures emanating from its southern rim and proceeding southeast are known as the Rimae Archimedes.
The closest man-made object to Archimedes Crater is Luna 2, which is also the first man-made object to land on the moon. Luna 2 was the second of a series of spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union to explore the moon. Its 390-kilogram instrument package crashed on the surface of the moon on September 14, 1959, between the Archimedes and Autolycus Craters at roughly 0o longitude, 29.1o North latitude. More information on the Luna 2 mission can be found at the following NASA Web site: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1959-014A
Apollo 15
Launched: 26 July 1971The bottom photograph on the left is an oblique view of Archimedes Crater taken by the Apollo 15 metric camera (Apollo 15, AS15-1541). Part of the spacecraft is in the frame at right. North is at 11:30. More information on the Apollo 15 mission can be found at the following NASA Web site: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo15info.html |
Archimedes Home Page
Luna 2
The closest humans have come to Archimedes Crater was during the Apollo 15 mission, whose landing site was at the base of the Apennine Mountains about 200 kilometers southeast of the crater's center. Details of the mission are below: