En vivo
Io · Mons · 70th largest named feature

Rata Mons

Māori sun hero.

What Rata Mons is

Rata Mons is a mons — a mountain — on Io, 168 km across, centred at 36.4° S, 158.7° E. It is the 70th largest named feature on Io and the 19th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Māori sun hero. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1997, under the theme it applies to every mons on Io. Of the 26 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Greek (12), Italy (4), Hawaii (1), Iran (1).

Feature class
a mountain
Diameter
168 km
about 1.7 times the width of Yellowstone
Coordinates
36.4° S, 158.7° E
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1997
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
New Zealand
Oceania

What it would take to settle Rata Mons

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 36.4° S, 158.7° E.

Settlement difficulty here
78.1/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
1.4 harder than the median site
Ranked
208th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is sunlight 80% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Rata Mons'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 mons features on Io

All 26 montes on Io — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.