Once, about four billion years ago, an asteroid about a kilometre and a half across fell on our Moon. The huge chunk of rock and iron smashed into our satellite’s central highlands on the nearside, its fall unwitnessed by the brooding, lifeless Earth, looming large in the ancient lunar sky. It excavated a crater about 33 km across in the already rugged terrain.
A recent image of Lindsay Crater assembled from Lunar Recconnaissance Orbiter imagery.On Earth any of those tiny craters in the main crater's floor would be major tourist attractions.(Image credit:NASA/LRO)
Time passed, and over the aeons the crater gradually changed.
The slow erosion of meteroids and occasional blankets of ejecta blasted from new craters around it gradually softened its outlines, while smaller arrivals from deep space poked new smaller craters in its floor.
Time passed, intelligent life arose on Earth and gave the crater a name, Dollond-C. Then in 1972 Apollo 16 landed about 100km to the crater’s southeast but that is as close as life as ever come to it. In 1978, the crater got a new name, becoming Lindsay Crater in honour of Eric M. Lindsay (1907-74).
Lindsay, a long-serving director of Armagh Observatory, was of course the man who inspired Armagh Planetarium, so this crater is a very special piece of the Solar System to us all here.
(Article by Colin Johnston, Science Education Director)
2 Comments
Joseph W. Lindsay Haley III · September 8, 2014 at 17:16
Very little on the site of your history, in especial recognition and information on the man who was the Director of the Observatory and the force behind the planetarium. I refer to Eric M Lindsay. I had to dig on the site to find this reference above.
admin · September 9, 2014 at 09:39
Dear Joseph, I’m sorry you think we are overlooking Dr Lindsay’s essential role in the Planetarium’s founding. He is covered in our history section:
DOCTOR ERIC LINDSAY:THE MAN WHO BUILT ARMAGH PLANETARIUM and ARMAGH PLANETARIUM OPENS (Links). You may also be interested in ERIC MERVYN LINDSAY:
IN MEMORIAM (Link, article starts on page 5).
May I ask if you have a family connection to Dr. Lindsay?