Mare Frigoris / f r ɪ ˈ ɡ ɔːr ɪ s / (Latin frīgōris , the "Sea of Cold") is a lunar mare in the far north of the Moon . It is located in the outer rings of the Procellarum basin , just north of Mare Imbrium , and stretches east to north of Mare Serenitatis . It is just north of the dark crater Plato .
6-640: The basin material surrounding the mare is of the Lower Imbrian epoch , while the eastern mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch, and the western mare material is of the Eratosthenian epoch. Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Frigoris was named by Giovanni Riccioli , whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. Previously, William Gilbert had included it among
12-672: A lunar geologic period divided into two epochs, the Early and Late . In the lunar geologic timescale , the Early Imbrian epoch occurred from 3,850 million years ago to about 3,800 million years ago. It overlaps the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment of the Inner Solar System . The impact that created the huge Mare Imbrium basin occurred at the start of the epoch. The other large basins that dominate
18-593: The Insula Borealis ("Northern Island") in his map of c .1600, and Michael van Langren had labelled it the Mare Astronomicum ("Sea of Astronomy") in his 1645 map. Pierre Gassendi called it the Boreum Mare ('Northern Sea'). This area of the Moon featured prominently in 'Behemoth', the second episode of the 1973 BBC science fiction mini-series Moonbase 3 . Mare Frigoris was intended to be
24-587: The lunar near side (such as Mare Crisium , Mare Tranquillitatis , Mare Serenitatis , and Mare Fecunditatis ) were also formed in this period. These basins filled with basalt mostly during the subsequent Late Imbrian epoch. The Early Imbrian was preceded by the Nectarian . In the Lunar geologic timescale , the Late Imbrian epoch occurred between 3,800 million years ago to about 3,200 million years ago. It
30-456: The original landing site of the fictionalised version of Apollo 15 in the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind , although in the show the crew decided last minute to divert the landing to Shackleton crater in the Lunar south pole upon finding out there is a high concentration of water ice in the area (a discovery not made in reality until the 1990s). Lower Imbrian The Imbrian is
36-667: Was the epoch during which the mantle below the lunar basins partially melted and filled them with basalt . The melting is thought to have occurred because the impacts of the Early Imbrian thinned the overlying rock – either causing the mantle to rise because of the reduced pressure on it, bringing molten material closer to the surface, or the top melting as heat flowed upwards through the mantle because of reduced overlying thermal insulation . The majority of lunar samples returned to earth for study come from this epoch. Since little or no geological evidence on Earth exists from
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