Don Wilhelms | |
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Born | Don Edward Wilhelms July 5, 1930 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Alma mater | Pomona College |
Awards | G.K. Gilbert Award, Shoemaker Distinguished Lunar Scientist Award |
Scientific career | |
Fields | geology |
Institutions | United States Geological Survey |
Don Edward Wilhelms (born July 5, 1930) is a former United States Geological Survey geologist who contributed to geologic mapping of the Earth's moon and to the geologic training of the Apollo astronauts. [1] He is the author of To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist's History of Lunar Exploration (1993), [2] The geologic history of the Moon (1987), [3] and he co-authored the Geologic Map of the Near Side of the Moon (1971) with John F. McCauley. [4] Wilhelms also contributed to Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Orbit (NASA SP-362). [5] He has also contributed to the study of Mars (including Mariner 9), Mercury, and Ganymede.
He was born July 5, 1930. Wilhelms was the recipient of the G. K. Gilbert Award in 1988. He received the Shoemaker Distinguished Lunar Scientist Award in 2010 at the Ames Research Center. [6]
The mineral Donwilhelmsite is named after Wilhelms. [7] The fact that this mineral is formed only at high shock pressure such as that created by impacts is appropriate given the focus of Wilhelms' studies.
Minor planet 4826 Wilhelms is named in his honor. [8]
Mare Insularum is a lunar mare located in the Insularum basin just south of the western Mare Imbrium. The basin material is of the Lower Imbrian epoch, with the mare material of the Upper Imbrian epoch. The mare is bordered by the craters Copernicus on the east, and Kepler on the west. Oceanus Procellarum joins the mare to the southwest.
Mare Moscoviense is a lunar mare that sits in the Moscoviense basin. It is one of the very few maria on the far side of the Moon. Like Mare Marginis, this mare appears to be fairly thin. However, it is clearly centered within a large impact basin. It is also much lower than either the outer basin floor or the farside highlands.
Alphonsus is an ancient impact crater on the Moon that dates from the pre-Nectarian era. It is located on the lunar highlands on the eastern end of Mare Nubium, west of the Imbrian Highlands, and slightly overlaps the crater Ptolemaeus to the north. To the southwest is the smaller Alpetragius. The crater name was approved by the IAU in 1935.
Aristarchus is a lunar impact crater that lies in the northwest part of the Moon's near side. It is considered the brightest of the large formations on the lunar surface, with an albedo nearly double that of most lunar features. The feature is bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, and displays unusually bright features when viewed through a large telescope. It is also readily identified when most of the lunar surface is illuminated by earthshine. The crater is deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Harold (Hal) Masursky was an American astrogeologist.
Brayley is a lunar impact crater located in the southwest part of the Mare Imbrium. It was named after British geographer Edward W. Brayley in 1935. It has a circular rim and a low rise in the center. There are no notable craters overlapping the rim or interior. The sinuous rille Rima Brayley passes to the north of Brayley.
Censorinus is a 3.8 km lunar impact crater located on a rise to the southeast of the Mare Tranquillitatis. It is named after the ancient Roman writer Censorinus. To the northeast is the crater Maskelyne.
Proclus is a young lunar impact crater located to the west of the Mare Crisium, on the east shore of the Palus Somni. Its diameter is 27 km. It was named after 5th century Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Proclus.
Kepler is a lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. To the southeast is the crater Encke. Kepler is named for the 17th century German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler.
Tsiolkovskiy is a large lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon. Named for Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, it lies in the southern hemisphere, to the west of the large crater Gagarin, and northwest of Milne. Just to the south is Waterman, with Neujmin to the south-southwest. The crater protrudes into the neighbouring Fermi, an older crater of comparable size that does not have a lava-flooded floor.
Van de Graaff is a crater formation located on the far side of the Moon, on the northeast edge of Mare Ingenii.
Korolev is a large lunar impact crater of the walled plain or basin type. It is a basin of Nectarian age.
King is a prominent lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon, and can not be viewed directly from Earth. The crater was named after Arthur Scott King and Edward Skinner King in 1970. Prior to that, this crater was known as Crater 211. It forms a pair with Ibn Firnas, which is only slightly larger and is attached to the northeast rim of King. To the northwest is the crater Lobachevskiy, and Guyot is located an equal distance to the north-northwest.
Cayley is a small lunar impact crater that is located in a lava-flooded region to the west of Mare Tranquillitatis. It was named after the 19th-century English mathematician Arthur Cayley. It lies to the northwest of the smaller crater De Morgan and the larger D'Arrest. West and slightly north of Cayley is Whewell, a crater of about the same dimensions. To the north is a linear rille designated Rima Ariadaeus, which follows a course to the east-southeast.
Peirce is a small lunar impact crater in the western part of Mare Crisium. That dark, circular lunar mare is located in the east-northeasterly part of the Moon's near side. It was named after the American mathematician Benjamin Peirce. Peirce lies to the north of the craters Yerkes and Picard, and southeast of Macrobius located outside the mare. Just over a crater diameter to the north of Peirce is the smaller Swift. To the northwest is the wrinkle ridge Dorsum Oppel.
Vitello is a lunar impact crater that lies along the southern edge of the small Mare Humorum, in the southwest part of the Moon's near side. It was named after 13th century Polish theologian and physicist Vitello. It lies just to the east of the lava-flooded crater Lee. To the northeast along the edge of the lunar mare is the Rupes Kelvin, an irregular fault line.
Mendeleev is a large lunar impact crater that is located on the far side of the Moon, as seen from the Earth. The southern rim of this walled plain just crosses the lunar equator. Intruding into the eastern rim of Mendeleev is the crater Schuster. Nearly on the opposite side, the smaller Hartmann intrudes into west-southwestern rim.
Necho is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon, and therefore cannot be seen directly from the Earth. It lies to the northeast of the larger crater Langemak, about a crater diameter to the south-southwest of Bečvář and further east is Love.
The Astrogeology Science Center is the entity within the United States Geological Survey concerned with the study of planetary geology and planetary cartography. It is housed in the Shoemaker Building in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Center was established in 1963 by Eugene Merle Shoemaker to provide lunar geologic mapping and to assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon as part of the Apollo program.
Lunar Sample 15016, better known as the "Seatbelt Basalt", is a lunar sample discovered and collected on the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 in the Hadley-Apennine region of the Moon. The rock is a 0.923 kg (2.03 lb) vesicular olivine basalt.