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Io · Mensa · 98th largest named feature

Iynx Mensa

Cast a spell on Zeus so he fell in love with Io.

What Iynx Mensa is

Iynx Mensa is a mensa — a flat-topped elevation with cliff-like edges — on Io, 117 km across, centred at 62.3° S, 56.0° E. It is the 98th largest named feature on Io and the 9th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Cast a spell on Zeus so he fell in love with Io. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985, under the theme it applies to every mensa on Io. Of the 9 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Greek (7), India (1), Italy (1).

Feature class
a flat-topped elevation with cliff-like edges
Diameter
117 km
about the width of Yellowstone
Coordinates
62.3° S, 56.0° E
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1985
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Iynx Mensa

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 62.3° S, 56.0° E.

Settlement difficulty here
79.2/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Io overall
76.7
2.5 harder than the median site
Ranked
235th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is ground mixed ground — a rim, a floor and slopes between them. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Iynx Mensa'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 mensa features on Io