Monan Patera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A map of the area surrounding Monan Patera, from NASA World Wind. Click to enlarge.
A map of the area surrounding Monan Patera, from NASA World Wind. Click to enlarge.

Monan Patera is a patera, or a complex crater with scalloped edges, on Jupiter's moon Io. It is about 113 kilometers in diameter and is located at 19.7°N, 105.4°W. It is named after Monan, a god in Brazilian mythology that destroyed the world with fire and floods. Its name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1997.[1][2]

Monan Patera forms an unusual worm-shaped depression at the north end of the elongate mountain Monan Mons, south of which is Ah Peku Patera. To the west is the eruptive center Amirani, and to the north is Skythia Mons. To the east are Gish Bar Patera, Gish Bar Mons, and Estan Patera.[3] Monan Patera's similar north and south margins indicate it may have formed as a pull-apart basin and subsequently was filled with lava.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ IO NOMENCLATURE. lnfm1.sai.msu.su. Retrieved on October 20, 2007.
  2. ^ USGS Astro: Planetary Nomenclature: Feature Data Search Results. USGS Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature Feature Information. Retrieved on October 20, 2007.
  3. ^ NASA World Wind 1.4. NASA Ames Research Center, 2007.
  4. ^ Jani Radebaugh, Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, Alfred S. McEwen, Elizabeth P. Turtle, Windy Jaeger, and Moses Milazzo (2001). "Paterae on Io: A new type of volcanic caldera?". Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 33,005–33,020.