Wessex Cleft

From The Moon
Jump to: navigation, search

Wessex Cleft (Apollo 17 site formation name)

Lat: 20.3°N, Long: 30.9°E, Diam: 4 km, Depth: km, Rükl: 25

external image normal_Apollo_17_Wessex_Cleft-AS17-M-1501-LTVT.JPG
AS17-M-1501

Images

LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
Mike Constantine's assembled panorama of LM Challenger's landingsite shows the flag, CDR Gene Cernan and the Lunar Roving Vehicle in front of the Wessex Cleft. The North Massif at left of it, the Sculptured Hills and the East Massif behind (and rightward) of LM Challenger. Looking east.
AS17-134-20431 is one of Apollo 17's many LEVA-Hasselblad photographs of the shadowed Wessex Cleft between the North Massif (left) and the Sculptured Hills (right). - DannyCaes Jan 26, 2008


Sunrise circumstances at the Wessex Cleft and the western part of the Sculptured Hills

  • A survey of surface photographs made by Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17, december 1972)
  • The first photographs were made at sun's elevation 16 degrees, the last ones at sun's elevation 38 degrees
  • Research: Danny Caes (- DannyCaes May 1, 2014)

EVA 1

EVA 2

EVA 3



Maps

(LAC zone 43D1) LAC map Geologic map LTO map

Description


Description: Wikipedia

Wessex Cleft

Additional Information

The Landing Site Name "Wessex Cleft" is plotted on Topophotomap 43D1/S1 and on Site Traverses chart 43D1S2.
  • Wessex Cleft (dividing the North Massif from the Sculptured Hills) - "Wessex, with its deep-rooted place in the far history of England and in the novels of Thomas Hardy, symbolizes the intangible strength that the land transmits to its people the world over. People have always been in transit from the land or to the land; now, space has offered the awesome possibility of final separation." (source: APOLLO LUNAR SURFACE JOURNAL, Eric M. Jones).
  • Note that this is not a "cleft" in the sense normally used by Elger in his feature descriptions -- that is, it is not a rille, but rather simply an indentation separating two separately named mountain units: North Massif, on the northwest, from Sculptured Hills, on the southeast.


Nomenclature

Astronaut-named feature, Apollo 17 site.

LPOD Articles


Bibliography

EXPLORING THE MOON; The Apollo Expeditions (David M. Harland, Springer - 1999).