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Europa · Linea · 48th largest named feature

Tormsdale Linea

Stone row in Ireland.

What Tormsdale Linea is

Tormsdale Linea is a linea — a long, dark or bright marking — on Europa, 875 km across, centred at 47.7° N, 102.0° E. It is the 48th largest named feature on Europa and the 36th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Stone row in Ireland. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2003, under the theme it applies to every linea on Europa. Of the 49 features of this class catalogued on Europa, the naming categories run Greek (38), Celtic (6), England (3), France (1).

Feature class
a long, dark or bright marking
Diameter
875 km
about the length of Italy
Coordinates
47.7° N, 102.0° E
Planetocentric, on Europa
Name approved
2003
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Celtic
Europe

What it would take to settle Tormsdale Linea

Europa scores 60.9 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 47.7° N, 102.0° E.

Settlement difficulty here
63.4/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Europa overall
60.9
2.5 harder than the median site
Ranked
118th
of 129 named places on Europa

What this spot has going for it is water same as everywhere else on this world. What works against it is radiation geometry on the trailing hemisphere, which takes the brunt of the bombardment.

Computed from Tormsdale Linea'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 Europa (earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Europa 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 linea features on Europa

All 49 lineae on Europa — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.