Space Records

Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, M.D. (1942-) holds the record for the longest spaceflight duration. During 1994-1995, he spent 437.8 contiguous days in orbit, almost all of them aboard the Mir space station.

The largest number of people in space at the same time was thirteen, and this has happened four times.

The fastest humans have ever traveled (relative to Earth) occurred on May 26, 1969 when the Apollo 10 crew (Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan) reached a speed of 24,791 mph—just 0.0037% the speed of light.

Both Jerry Ross and Franklin Chang Díaz hold the record for the most spaceflights. Both astronauts have gone into space seven times. Jerry Ross (STS-61-B, STS-27, STS-37, STS-55, STS-74, STS-88, STS-110) between November 26, 1985 and April 19, 2002 (Space Shuttle Atlantis: 5, Columbia: 1, Endeavour: 1), and Franklin Chang Díaz (STS-61-C, STS-34, STS-46, STS-60, STS-75, STS-91, STS-111) between January 12, 1986 and June 19, 2002 (Space Shuttle Columbia: 2, Atlantis: 2, Discovery: 2, Endeavour: 1). Both astronauts were mission specialists in the NASA Astronaut Group 9, announced May 29, 1980.

The farthest humans have ever been from Earth occurred at 0:21 UT on April 15, 1970 when the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft (Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert) executed a free-return trajectory to Earth. They were furthest from Earth above the lunar farside, 158 miles above the surface and 248,655 miles from Earth.

The youngest person ever to fly in space was Gherman Titov who was 25 years old during his solo Vostok 2 spaceflight on August 6, 1961. He was the second person to orbit the Earth.

The oldest person ever to fly in space was John Glenn who was 77 years old during his second spaceflight aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery STS-95 from October 29, 1998 to November 7, 1998. He was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.

The longest spacewalk occurred on March 11, 2001 when James Voss and Susan Helms were outside the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-102) and the International Space Station for 8 hours and 56 minutes.

The longest moonwalk occurred on December 12-13, 1972 when Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent 7 hours and 37 minutes outside the lunar module on their second of three lunar excursions. All were longer than 7 hours. This was the final Apollo mission, and Gene Cernan, who died in 2017, is still the last person to walk on the surface of the Moon.

Lunar Maria

António Cidadão, of Oeiras, Portugal, many years ago produced a wonderful set of images showing the location of each mare on the Moon. His website has not been updated since 1999 and the contact email address provided there is no longer valid, and even after a thorough Google search I can find no way to contact him to ask permission to link images here to his site. Even worse, because his hosting site is not secure (http: instead of https:), WordPress does not allow me to link directly to his images so I had to put copies into my media library. Please know that the images shown below are all copyrighted by António Cidadão.

Each image shows north is up and west is to the left. This is direction of increasing longitude and therefore west on the Moon, but in our sky, east is to the left. In other words, these annotated images of the Moon are correctly oriented as they would appear to the unaided eye in the sky in the northern hemisphere. In the rest of this article, we will use the moon-centric east-west convention that Cidadão indicates in his image diagrams.

Let’s take a look at each of the lunar maria from moon-west to moon-east. Their fanciful names were mostly given (and codified in 1651) by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671). Riccioli chose names related to weather, as it was then believed that the Moon, the closest celestial body to the Earth, exerted an influence on the Earth’s weather. This is perhaps not at all surprising given that the phenomenon of tides had been known since antiquity.

Most of the nearside west portion of the Moon is covered by a mare that is so large that it is given a unique designation: Oceanus for “ocean”.

Oceanus Procellarum, the “Ocean of Storms”

Oceanus Procellarum contains the famously bright crater Aristarchus and the associated Aristarchus Plateau. In the image above you will notice what appears to be a tiny mare close to the limb of the Moon west of the southern part of Oceanus Procellarum. This is the lava-flooded crater Grimaldi.

Mare Orientale, the “Eastern Sea”

South of Grimaldi and straddling the lunar limb is Mare Orientale. It is difficult to see because most of it is on the lunar farside, though libration can sometimes bring its oblique visage into view. The name Orientale, meaning “eastern”, describes its location on the eastward-facing limb of the Moon as seen from Earth, rather than its westward direction as seen from the surface of the Moon.

Mare Humorum, the “Sea of Moisture”

Mare Humorum is located just south of Oceanus Procellarum. It is round and inviting, though no spacecraft has ever landed there.

Mare Nubium, the “Sea of Clouds”

Mare Nubium is east of Mare Humorum. The large crater Bullialdus flanks the western edge of Mare Nubium, and Rupes Recta (the “Straight Wall”) flanks its eastern edge.

Mare Cognitum, the “Sea That Has Become Known”

Mare Cognitum lies between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum. It was named in 1964 after the Ranger 7 probe took the first U.S. close-up pictures of the Moon’s surface prior to crashing there.

Mare Insularum, the “Sea of Islands”

Mare Insularum is north of Mare Cognitum. Its current name was bestowed upon it in 1976 by lunar geologist Don Wilhelms (1930-). The crater Kepler on its western edge separates Mare Insularum from Oceanus Procellarum. The crater Copernicus is on the northeast side of its western lobe.

Mare Vaporum, the “Sea of Vapors”

Mare Vaporum is the mare closest to the center of the Moon’s nearside. The bright crater Manilius lies towards its northeastern edge and the volcanic crater Hyginus and its associated rille (Rima Hyginus) are immediately to its south.

Mare Imbrium, the “Sea of Rains”

Mare Imbrium was created 3.9 billion years ago when an asteroid some 150 miles across crashed into the Moon. This ancient feature is so large that it forms the right eye of the “Man in the Moon” we see when looking at a full or nearly full moon with our unaided eyes.

Mare Frigoris, the “Sea of Cold”

Mare Frigoris lies north and northeast of Mare Imbrium. The dark crater between them is Plato. It is the mare closest to the north pole of the Moon.

Mare Serenitatis, the “Sea of Serenity”

Now we begin our tour of the eastern hemisphere of the Moon’s nearside. Mare Serenitatis has the distinction of being the landing site of the last human mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, in 1972. It was also the landing site of the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 21 just one month later.

Mare Tranquillitatis, the “Sea of Tranquility”

Mare Tranquillitatis is perhaps the most famous of the lunar maria, as it was there that humans first set foot on the surface of the Moon in 1969. The Apollo 11 landing site is located near its southwest corner.

Mare Nectaris, the “Sea of Nectar”

Mare Nectaris lies south of Mare Tranquillitatis. This small, isolated, and nearly circular mare sports a prominent crater, Theophilus, at its northwest corner.

Mare Fecunditatis, the “Sea of Fertility”

East of Mare Nectaris lies Mare Fecunditatis. Superposed upon Mare Fecunditatis is the striking crater pair Messier and Messier A with two prominent rays evocative of a comet’s tail. Named after the famous French comet hunter Charles Messier (1730-1817), these craters and their associated rays were formed from a grazing impact from the east.

Mare Crisium, the “Sea of Crises”

Mare Crisium is a round and isolated mare that makes it easy to remember why it is called the “Sea of Crises”. The Soviet Luna 24 unmanned sample return mission landed there in 1976. The six ounces of lunar materials it brought back to Earth are the last lunar samples scientists have received.

Mare Anguis, the “Serpent Sea”

Mare Anguis lies just northeast of Mare Crisium and is called the “Serpent Sea” for its serpentine shape rather than the more fanciful name “Sea of Serpents” referred to by some science fiction authors.

Mare Undarum, the “Sea of Waves”

Mare Undarum lies southeast of Mare Crisium. Its uneven texture and lack of uniform smoothness appears to justify its name as “the sea of waves”.

Mare Spumans, the “Foaming Sea”

Mare Spumans lies south of Mare Undarum and east of Mare Fecunditatis. The bright crater Petit on the western side of this tiny mare evinces a bit of foam on “the foaming sea”.

Mare Australe, the “Southern Sea”

Mare Australe hugs the southeastern limb of the lunar nearside. Though obliquely viewed from Earth and wrapping around to the lunar farside, favorable libration makes it visible in its entirety on occasion.

Mare Smythii, “Smyth’s Sea”

Mare Smythii on the eastern limb of the Moon is one of two lunar maria named after people. The lucky honoree is English hydrographer and astronomer William Henry Smyth (1788-1865). The lunar equator passes through Mare Smythii.

Mare Marginis, the “Sea of the Edge”

Mare Marginis lies east of Mare Crisium, right along the lunar limb. The crater Goddard on the northeast side of Mare Marginis exhibits bright deposits on its northeastern side. This crater and its associated deposits can only be seen from Earth during favorable librations.

Mare Humboldtianum, the “Sea of Alexander von Humboldt”

Mare Humboldtianum lies along the northeastern limb of the Moon and is the other lunar mare named after a person. The German astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler (1794-1874) named this feature after German geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859).

This completes our tour of the 21 maria on the nearside of the Moon.

References

António Cidadão’s Home-Page of Lunar and Planetary Observation and CCD Imaging, Moon-“Light” Atlas.  Retrieved 22 April 2020.
http://www.astrosurf.com/cidadao/moonlight_mare_oceanus.htm

Ewen A. Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon: A History of Lunar Cartography and Nomenclature (Cambridge University Press, 2003).