Viracocha Patera

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A screenshot of an area including Viracocha Patera, from NASA World Wind.
A screenshot of an area including Viracocha Patera, from NASA World Wind.

Viracocha Patera is a patera, or a complex crater with scalloped edges, on Jupiter's moon Io. It is about 59 kilometers in diameter and is located at 61.8°S, 280.1°W. It is named after the Qechua sun god Viracocha. The name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1979.[1][2] Viracocha Patera is a Voyager spacecraft-detected hot spot.[3] To Viracocha Patera's east-northeast is Mithra Patera, and to the northeast is the mountain Silpium Mons.[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. ^ Hot Spots on Io: Initial Results from Galileo’s Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer. trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved on October 20, 2007.
  4. ^ NASA World Wind 1.4. NASA Ames Research Center, 2007.