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Credit & Copyright: Guy Bardon
Explanation:
The Mare Orientale,
Latin for Eastern Sea, is one of the most striking
large scale lunar features.
The youngest of the large lunar impact basins it's
very difficult to see from an
earthbound
perspective.
Still, captured on July 7 during a period of favorable tilt, or
libration
of the lunar nearside,
the Eastern Sea can be found at the upper right in this sharp
telescopic view.
In the image, the large lunar mare is
extremely foreshortened and stretches along the Moon's western edge.
Formed by the impact of an asteroid over 3 billion years
ago and nearly 1000 kilometers across, the
impact
basin's
concentric circular features are ripples in the lunar crust.
But they are a little easier to spot in
more direct images of the region taken from
lunar orbit.
So why is the Eastern Sea at the Moon's western edge?
The Mare Orientale
lunar feature was named before 1961.
That's when the convention labeling
east and west on lunar
maps
was reversed.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day