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The very large "twin crater" in this southward-looking oblique view
is Van de Graaff, approximately 250 km in length. The dark oval area in
the upper right corner near the horizon is the mare-filled crater Thomson,
which in turn lies within a much larger mare-filled circular basin that
contains Mare Ingenii. The crater Van de Graaff itself is filled with both
light plains and mare materials. The darker patch at the near end is mare
material, and the hummocky material along its left (east) side is ejecta
from the crater Birkeland (B). Light plains materials are also visible
in the near field within smaller craters and in areas between them. This
region of the lunar far side is of particular interest for two reasons:
(1) it has the highest concentration of natural radiation yet recorded
on the lunar far side by the gamma ray spectrometer (Metzger et al., 1973),
and (2) it is also the site of the most prominent magnetic anomaly associated
with the far-side highlands (Coleman et al., 1972a). -F.E.-B.
Report Source: NASA SP-362, Page 34, Figure 20
This web page was created by Francis Ridge
for The Lunascan Project
Lunar Farside
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