| Coordinates | 49°12′S6°12′E / 49.2°S 6.2°E Coordinates: 49°12′S6°12′E / 49.2°S 6.2°E |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 90 km |
| Depth | 3.8 km |
| Colongitude | 355° at sunrise |
| Eponym | Heraclitus |
Heraclitus is a complex lunar impact crater that lies in the rugged southern highlands of the Moon. The crater Licetus forms the northern end of the formation. Just to the east is Cuvier, and due south is Lilius. Just to the west of Heraclitus is the small satellite crater Heraclitus K, to the south of which is a pair of larger overlapping craters, Lilius E and Lilius D. [1]
Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, almost all of which were formed by impacts.
An impact crater is an approximately circular depression in the surface of a planet, moon, or other solid body in the Solar System or elsewhere, formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller body. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically have raised rims and floors that are lower in elevation than the surrounding terrain. Impact craters range from small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions to large, complex, multi-ringed impact basins. Meteor Crater is a well-known example of a small impact crater on Earth.
The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth and is Earth's only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, and the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits. The Moon is after Jupiter's satellite Io the second-densest satellite in the Solar System among those whose densities are known.
The entire formation is heavily worn, with features smoothed down by a long history of impacts. Heraclitus is a complex formation composed of three sections divided by a triple-armed interior ridge. Of the three sections, the most eroded and irregular is at the eastern end where the outer rim forms a low ridge that joins to Cuvier. [2]
The circular southwest end is the most intact section, forming the circular satellite crater Heraclitus D, which is attached to the other two sections along the northeast rim. There are a pair of ghost-crater rims on the floor, and a low ridge in the southwest. [2] The crater is 90 kilometers in diameter and 3.8 kilometers deep. It may be from the Pre-Imbrian period, which lasted from 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago. [1]
In textual studies, a palimpsest is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Pergamene was made of lamb, calf, or goat kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so in the interest of economy a pergamene often was re-used by scraping the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology, and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another, for example a monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.
The lunar geological timescale divides the history of Earth's Moon into five generally recognized periods: the Copernican, Eratosthenian, Imbrian, Nectarian, and Pre-Nectarian. The boundaries of this time scale are related to large impact events that have modified the lunar surface, changes in crater formation through time, and the size-frequency distribution of craters superposed on geological units. The absolute ages for these periods have been constrained by radiometric dating of samples obtained from the lunar surface. However, there is still much debate concerning the ages of certain key events, because correlating lunar regolith samples with geological units on the Moon is difficult, and most lunar radiometric ages have been highly affected by an intense history of bombardment.
It is named after the 6th-century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus. [1]
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, self-identified and historically known as Hellas, is a country located in Southern and Southeast Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2016. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (; Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος, translit. Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the apparently riddled and allegedly paradoxical nature of his philosophy and his stress upon the heedless unconsciousness of humankind, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".
