Another "Where In The Universe" Challenge

By Nancy Atkinson - June 19, 2008 at 7:27 AM UTC | Site News
crater1.jpg

Here's this week's 'Where In The Universe' challenge. I have a soft spot in my heart for craters. And the crater pictured here is one of the most gorgeous examples of a crater you'll see. But just where in the solar system is this crater? When I worked at a science museum, one of the first activities I ever did with children was to make craters. Just take a small tub, put in a few cups of flour and sprinkle cocoa powder on top. Then let the kids lose with impactors of all sizes and have them drop them (from the same height at first) and let them observe the parts of a crater (the rim, ejecta, rays, and sometimes even the step-like features on the walls). The kids loved this activity (you get to throw things and make a mess), but they also learned a lot about craters and how craters can provide information about the history of a planet or moon. So, back to the image, and "A crater I may contemplate" (see the source of that quote below after you've made your guess). Is this crater on a planet or a moon, and which one?

This crater is on Venus, and is named Dickinson Crater. This crater is 69 kilometers (43 miles) in diameter, and located in the northeastern Atalanta Region of Venus at 74.6 degrees north latitude and 177.2 east longitude. This crater is quite complex, characterized by a floor with alternating dark and bright materials. Rough but bright ejecta extend all around the crater, except to the west,which may indicate that the impactor that produced the crater came from the west. Extensive radar-bright flows that emanate from the crater's eastern walls may represent large volumes of impact melt, or they may be the result of volcanic material released from the subsurface during the cratering event.

The crater was named after Emily Dickinson, an American poet, who wrote a poem about volcanoes and craters:

Volcanoes be in Sicily And South America, I judge from my geography. Volcanoes nearer here, A lava step, at any time, Am I inclined to climb, A crater I may contemplate, Vesuvius at home.

Emily Dickinson, ‘Volcanoes be in Sicily’, from The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime (Boston: Little, Brown, 1914), p. 125.

How'd you do?

Full size image from

NASA Photojournal

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com