Pytheas Crater City?
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- Written by Todd Hetherington
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(Above, Pytheas Crater from Lunar Orbiter frame V-126-H3. NASA/USGS Original)
On the moon, in the Southern region of Mare Imbrium, lies a 19 km wide impact crater called Pytheas, named by Riccioli & Grimaldi after the Greek Philosopher and explorer.
(Above, Pytheas crater from AS17-M-2443. NASA/JSC/Arizona State University Original)
The crater morphology has something of a duel identity. The southwest half has terrain that appears to have been “slumped around.” The northeast half has a slightly higher crater rim and inside the crater there is an outer embankment. The embankment in that area of the internal crater bowl keeps the angle of descent from dropping off vertically, so it keeps it from being a steep angle like the southwest edge.
The Apollo panoramic frames AS17-P-3077, AS17-P-3080, and AS17-P-3081 appear to show the most detail from the northeast half and the features are quite anomalous. The first thing I noticed was what looked like engineered structures possibly placed right on the northeast crater edge (below).
(Above, images processed from the NASA/JSC/Arizona State University AS17-P-3080 raw tif tile 7.)
There also appears to be a three dimensional grid sitting on top of the inner embankment just inside the northeast crater rim (below). The grid does not match any other terrain in Pytheas crater. It has the appearance of an engineered rectangular structure making this section of the crater a good candidate for the existence of an arcology. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is essentially a three dimensional city sometimes referred to as a city in one complex.
(Above, image processed from the NASA/JSC/Arizona State University AS17-P-3080 raw tif tile 7.)
(Above, image processed from the NASA/JSC/Arizona State University AS17-P-3081 raw tif tile 7.)
The LROC has imaged the opposite crater wall, but I have yet to find a LROC image of the enbankment /grid side. Below are some other notable miscellaneous features within Pytheas crater, starting with this group of objects from AS17-P-3081 sitting on what looks like a square patch of outlined terrain.
(Above image processed from the NASA/JSC/Arizona State University AS17-P-3081 raw tif tile 7.)
Below, from AS17-P-3077 a tall white object casts a shadow on the crater bottom.
(Above image processed from the NASA/JSC/Arizona State University AS17-P-3077 raw tif tile 7.)
