To Ngoc Van (crater)
Crater on Mercury
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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] The pit may be evidence of explosive volcanism on the floor of the crater.[3]
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] |
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.[4]
