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Ganymede · Sulcus · 22nd largest named feature

Sicyon Sulcus

Greek; where Ganymede and Hebe were worshipped as rain-givers.

What Sicyon Sulcus is

Sicyon Sulcus is a sulcus — a set of parallel grooves and ridges — on Ganymede, 2,125 km across, centred at 33.7° N, 15.3° W. It is the 22nd largest named feature on Ganymede and the 14th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Greek; where Ganymede and Hebe were worshipped as rain-givers. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1979, under the theme it applies to every sulcus on Ganymede. Of the 35 features of this class catalogued on Ganymede, the naming categories run Assyro-Babylonian (13), Greek (7), Sumerian (7), Babylon (3).

Feature class
a set of parallel grooves and ridges
Diameter
2,125 km
about the width of the Mediterranean
Coordinates
33.7° N, 15.3° W
Planetocentric, on Ganymede
Name approved
1979
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Sicyon Sulcus

Ganymede scores 55 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 33.7° N, 15.3° W.

Settlement difficulty here
56.6/ 100
Typical for this world
Ganymede overall
55
1.6 harder than the median site
Ranked
125th
of 196 named places on Ganymede

What this spot has going for it is water same as everywhere else on this world. What works against it is temperature about -161 °C mean at this latitude.

Computed from Sicyon Sulcus's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 84% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Ganymede (earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Ganymede and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.

What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.

What is next to it

The largest sulcus features on Ganymede

All 35 sulci on Ganymede — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.