Van Serg (crater) explained

Coordinates:20.23°N 30.83°W
Diameter:100 m[1]
Eponym:Nicholas Vanserg (pen name of Hugh McKinstry)

Van Serg is a feature on Earth's Moon, a crater in Taurus–Littrow valley. Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited it in 1972, on the Apollo 17 mission, during EVA 3. Van Serg was designated Geology Station 9.

To the northwest is Shakespeare and to the northeast are Cochise and Geology Station 8 at the base of the Sculptured Hills. To the south is Sherlock, and to the southwest are the Apollo 17 landing site and the large crater Camelot.

Name

The crater was named by the astronauts after Harvard University geology professor Hugh McKinstry, who, according to their explanation, sometimes wrote satire under the pseudonym "Nicholas Van Serg".[2] In fact, McKinstry's pseudonym was Nicholas Vanserg.[3] [4]

Songwriter, humorist and academic Tom Lehrer, who attended and taught at Harvard, suggested that McKinstry's pseudonym was inspired by the name of the Vanserg Building at Harvard, which is an acronym of its original tenants: Veterans Administration, Naval Science, Electronic Research, and Graduate dining hall. Since it was a temporary building, it never got a "real" name. (This wooden building still exists.)[5] A slightly different list of tenants reported is "Veterans Administration, Naval Science, Electronic Research, and Graduate School".[6] [7]

Samples

The following samples were collected from Van Serg crater (Station 9), as listed in Table 7-I of the Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report.[8] The "Rock Type" is from the table, and the "Lithology" is from the Lunar Sample Compendium of the Lunar and Planetary Institute or NASA's Lunar Sample Catalog.

Sample In Situ Photo Rock Type Lithology Photo
79002/01 (Double drive tube) Regolith Regolith[9] -
79035 Dark matrix breccia Soil Breccia[10] -
79115 Dark matrix breccia Regolith Breccia[11] -
79125 Dark matrix breccia Microbreccia[12] -
79135 Dark matrix breccia Regolith Breccia[13]
79155 - Coarse basalt Shocked Basalt[14] -
79175 Agglutinate Regolith Breccia[15] -
79195 Dark matrix breccia Regolith Breccia[16] -
79215 Brecciated troctolite Feldspathic Granulitic Impactite[17] -
79225 Friable dark matrix breccia Friable Microbreccia[18] -
79226 Friable dark matrix breccia Friable Microbreccia[19] -
79227 and 79228 Friable clods Clod[20] -
79245 Crystalline High Grade Metaclastic[21] -
79265 Fine basalt High-Ti Mare Basalt[22] -
79515 Medium basalt Ilmenite Basalt[23] -
79516 Fine basalt Vitrophyric Ilmenite Basalt[24] -
79517 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[25] -
79518 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[26] -
79519 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[27] -
79525 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[28] -
79526 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[29] -
79527 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[30] -
79528 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[31] -
79529 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[32] -
79535 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[33] -
79536 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[34] -
79537 Dark matrix breccia Dark Matrix Breccia[35] -

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/6315 Van Serg
  2. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.site.html The Valley of Taurus–Littrow
  3. Vanserg, Nicholas. "Mathmanship." American Scientist, vol. 46, no. 2, 1958, pp. 94A–98A. JSTOR.
  4. Book: William A. S. Sarjeant. Geologists and the history of geology: an international bibliography from the origins to 1978. 1980. Macmillan. 978-0-333-29393-5. 1689.
  5. Web site: The College Pump - Naming Names. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100116035744/http://harvardmagazine.com/1997/03/pump.html. 2010-01-16.
  6. https://books.google.com/books?id=hxpvsfxjfMAC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144 p. 144
  7. Note: The full name for VA was "Veterans' Administration Guidance Center", where "Veterans' Administration" refers to the United States Veterans' Administration now known as the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. These centers were established after WWII in all major educational institutions.https://books.google.com/books?id=ehCoRf6JRlkC&pg=RA51-PA1
  8. Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report (NASA Special Publication 330). Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C. 1973.
  9. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79002.pdf 79002/01
  10. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79035.pdf 79035
  11. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79135.pdf 79115/79135
  12. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79125.pdf 79125
  13. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79135.pdf 79115/79135
  14. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79155.pdf 79155
  15. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79175.pdf 79175
  16. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79195.pdf 79195
  17. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79215.pdf 79215
  18. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79225.pdf 79225
  19. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79226.pdf 79226
  20. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79227_79228.pdf 79227/79228
  21. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79245.pdf 79245
  22. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79265.pdf 79265
  23. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79515.pdf 79515
  24. https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/samples/atlas/compendium/79516.pdf 79516
  25. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79517.pdf 79517
  26. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79518.pdf 797518
  27. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79519.pdf 79519
  28. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79525.pdf 79525
  29. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79526.pdf 79526
  30. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79527.pdf 79527
  31. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79528.pdf 79528
  32. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79529.pdf 79529
  33. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79535.pdf 79535
  34. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79536.pdf 79536
  35. https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/catalogs/apollo17/v3/79537.pdf 79537

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Van Serg (crater)".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.