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Mare Imbrium

Sea of Rains, Mare on the Moon

Feature onThe Moon
Feature typeMare (Lunar Sea)
QuadrangleLQ-04, LQ-05, LQ-11
Lunar coordinates15.2° - 51.5° N, 38.4°W - 8.6° E
DimensionsDiameter 1,145 km
Bounding featuresCassini, Eratosthenes, Mare Serenitatis, Montes Alpes, Montes Apenninus, Montes Carpatus, Montes Caucasus, Montes Jura, Montes Recti, Oceanus Procellarum, Promontorium Banat, Promontorium Heraclides, Promontorium Laplace, Sinus Aestuum, Sinus Iridum, Theaetetus, Tobias Mayer
Interior featuresArchimedes, Aristillus, Autolycus, Beer, Delisle, Diophantus, Draper, Euler, Feuillée, Heis, Helicon, Herschel, Kirch, Lambert, Le Verrier, Mons La Hire, Mons Piton, Montes Spitzbergensis, Montes Tenerife, Piazzi Smyth, Pytheas, Sinus Lunicus, Timocharis, Wallace
NotesThe wide floor of Mare Imbrium is largely flat and featureless, especially in the north, but a string of deep craters runs across its southern part to terminate in the wide terraced crater Archimedes and more rugged land beyond. In the northwest, the circular walls of the mare are broken by Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows, cutting into the mountains of Montes Jura.

An enormous lunar basin. With a diameter of more than a thousand kilometres, Mare Imbrium is the largest feature of its kind. Indeed, after Oceanus Procellarum, it is the second largest lunar feature of any kind at all. Its circular perimeter is marked by mountain ranges, and its grey surface is scarred by clefts.

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