Permanently shadowed crater

The Moon's Erlanger crater is an example of a permanently shadowed crater.

A permanently shadowed crater is a depression on a body in the Solar System within which lies a point that is always in darkness.[1][2]

As of 2019, there are 324 known permanently shadowed regions on the Moon.[3] Such regions also exist on Mercury[4] and Ceres.[5]

  1. ^ "LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER: Permanently Shadowed Regions on the Moon" (PDF). lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 August 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  2. ^ "GMS: The Moon's Permanently Shadowed Regions". 6 March 2013.
  3. ^ "Permanently Shadowed Regions Atlas | Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera".
  4. ^ "Permanently shadowed, radar-bright regions on Mercury".
  5. ^ Schorghofer, Norbert; Mazarico, Erwan; Platz, Thomas; Preusker, Frank; Schröder, Stefan E.; Raymond, Carol A.; Russell, Christopher T. (2016). "The permanently shadowed regions of dwarf planet Ceres". Geophysical Research Letters. 43 (13): 6783–6789. Bibcode:2016GeoRL..43.6783S. doi:10.1002/2016GL069368.