Mare Cognitum
lunar mare
Mare Cognitum (Latin cognitum, the "Sea that has Become Known") is a lunar mare located in a basin or large crater which sits in the second ring of Oceanus Procellarum. To the northwest of the mare is the Montes Riphaeus mountain range, part of the rim of the buried crater or basin containing the mare. Previously unnamed, the mare received its name in 1964 in reference to its selection as the target for the successful impact probe Ranger 7, the first American spacecraft to return closeup images of the Moon's surface.
Origin
The basin material is of the Pre-Nectarian epoch, while most of the basaltic mare material is of the Upper Imbrian epoch.
Exploration
The Ranger 7 lunar probe impacted Mare Cognitum at the conclusion of its picture-taking mission. Surveyor 3 and Apollo 12 landed near its northern shore. The outcrop of the Fra Mauro formation, where Apollo 14 landed, is also located near Mare Cognitum.
Statio Cognitum
On November 19, 1969, astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed Apollo 12's Lunar Module within walking distance of Surveyor 3, which had been on the Moon since 1967. Named "Statio Cognitum" the site's closeness to its intended target demonstrated NASA's capability of precise lunar landings. The location also provided a relatively smooth Mare surface and a proximity to the lunar equator, thus ensuring relative ease of access from the standpoint of fuel consumption.
“Mare Cognitum” enters the record as lunar mare. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mare, Cognitum and lunar can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q285952. VIAF identifies the subject as 357145857917823020447. Authority coordinates are -10.530, -22.310. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1969 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mare Cognitum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.