Breathtaking peaks!

Langrenus is a large crater about 132 km in diameter and 4.5 km deep, located near the eastern limb on the side closest to the Moon, east of Mare Fecunditatis.

From a structural point of view, the Langrenus crater can be divided into three main areas: 1. the bottom of the crater, 2. terraces and sidewalls and 3. the central peak.

Its formation is unusual, the southern half is covered by a homogeneous material of smooth appearance with little mineralogical diversity, what seems to be the melting of the impact. These materials can be traced, even in deposits outside the crater itself, reaching a distance of 50 km from the edge of the crater.

Another peculiarity is its disorganized walls. With terraces stepped, but not fragmented and uneven. In fact, although it is similar to craters like Copernicus, its walls have irregular faults without a system of administration of these well-defined faults.

But if something catches the eye on Langrenus is its complex central peak of very light colors. It has a curious form of Z, with several groups of well-defined peaks. The complex dense peak rises to more than 2000m and spectral analysis indicates that mainly consists of troctolite a mafic rock also formed by calcium plagioclase and olivine. Troctolites are rocks apparently originating in the deepest layers of the crust, where it interacts with the mantle. For the time being, seven craters with troctolite-rich central peaks have been identified: Copernicus, Teofilo, Langrenus, Tsiolkovsky, Keeler and Crookes. All located in the equatorial belt. Undoubtedly, it is a very interesting peculiarity, and several hypotheses were proposed to explain the origin of these materials rich in olivine, which in any case is quite deep in the lunar crust but with the violence of the impact was brought out.

Source: Observar El Cielo - Patrício Domínguez

Adaptation: Avani Soares

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