Gauwa Patera
What Gauwa Patera is
Gauwa Patera is a patera — an irregular or scalloped-edged crater, usually volcanic — on Io, 27 km across, centred at 35.6° N, 12.2° W. It is the 239th largest named feature on Io and the 155th largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
!Kung (people of Sao/Bushmen group in Angola, Namibia, and Botswana) western sky sun god. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2023, under the theme it applies to every patera on Io. Of the 170 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Japan (9), Celtic (8), India (6), China (6).
What it would take to settle Gauwa Patera
Io scores 76.7 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 35.6° N, 12.2° W.
What this spot has going for it is sunlight — 81% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water — same as everywhere else on this world.
Computed from Gauwa Patera'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 Io (earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Io 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 patera features on Io
All 170 paterae on Io — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.