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Io · Regio · 7th largest named feature

Chalybes Regio

Greek; Io passed through here in her wanderings.

What Chalybes Regio is

Chalybes Regio is a regio — a large area distinguished by its brightness or colour — on Io, 760 km across, centred at 56.9° N, 84.7° W. It is the 7th largest named feature on Io and the 6th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Greek; Io passed through here in her wanderings. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1979, under the theme it applies to every regio on Io. Of the 10 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Greek (9), Italy (1).

Feature class
a large area distinguished by its brightness or colour
Diameter
760 km
about the length of Italy
Coordinates
56.9° N, 84.7° W
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1979
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Chalybes Regio

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 56.9° N, 84.7° W.

Settlement difficulty here
77.9/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
1.2 harder than the median site
Ranked
195th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is ground flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Chalybes Regio'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 regio features on Io

All 10 regiones on Io — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.