Thursday, July 21, 2011

A Crater Named Balagtas


The surface of the planet Mercury is pock-marked with numerous craters, and the International Astronomical Union names them after famous artists and writers. 






One Philippine writer was immortalized with a crater on Mercury named after him - Francisco Balagtas, which was the pen name of poet Francisco Baltazar. He wrote, among others, the opus Florante at Laura


The Balagtas crater is about 98.82 kilometers in diameter, located at 22.6 ° center latitude and 12.75 ° E longitude. 


Sources:


USGS
Wolfram Alpha
Wikipedia

[Pictures are screenshots from USGS (top) and Wolfram Alpha (bottom)]

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