To Ngoc Van (crater)
To Ngoc Van is a pit-floored crater on Mercury, named after the Vietnamese artist Tô Ngọc Vân.[1] It was discovered in January 2008 during the first flyby of the planet by MESSENGER spacecraft.[2] Its floor displays an irregularly shaped collapse feature, which is called a central pit. The size of the pit is 21 × 10 km.[2] Such a feature may have resulted from collapse of a magma chamber underlying the central part of the crater. The collapse feature is an analog of Earth's volcanic calderas.[2]
 Central pit feature of To Ngoc Van crater by MESSENGER in approximate color | |
| Feature type | Impact crater |
|---|---|
| Location | Shakespeare quadrangle, Mercury |
| Coordinates | 52.49°N 111.7°W |
| Diameter | 71 km (44 mi) |
| Eponym | Tô Ngọc Vân[1] |
Another MESSENGER image
To the southeast of To Ngoc Van is Bruegel crater, and to the northwest is Burns. To the northeast is a large (329 km diameter), unnamed crater of Tolstojan in age.[3]
References
- "Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: To Ngoc Van". USGS. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
- Gillis-Davis, Jeffrey J.; Blewett, David T.; Gaskell, Robert W.; Denevi, Brett W.; Robinson, Mark S.; Strom, Robert G.; Solomon, Sean C.; Sprague, Ann L. (2009). "Pit-floor craters on Mercury: Evidence of near-surface igneous activity". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 285 (3–4): 243–250. Bibcode:2009E&PSL.285..243G. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.05.023. See unnamed crater 1.
- Denevi, B. W., Ernst, C. M., Prockter, L. M., and Robinson, M. S., 2018. The Geologic History of Mercury. In Mercury: The View After MESSENGER edited by Sean C. Solomon, Larry R. Nittler, and Brian J. Anderson. Cambridge Planetary Science. Chapter 6, Table 6.3.
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